University  of  California. 


<  ;  i  KT  «  >  K 


2! 


RE-STATEMENTS 


OF 


CHRISTIAN    DOCTRINE, 


BY 


HENKY    W.     BELLOWS, 
M 

MINISTER  OP  ALL  SOULS1  CHURCH,  NEW   YORK. 


BOSTON: 
AMERICAN  UNITARIAN  ASSOCIATION. 


MDCCCLXVII. 


Entered  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1867,  by 

THE  AMERICAN   UNITARIAN  ASSOCIATION, 

In  the  Clerk's  office  of  the  District  Court  of  the  District  of  Massachusetts. 


CAMBRIDGE  : 
PRESS  OP  JOHN  WILSON  AND  SOW. 


t^2^-^ 

>*    off  THR         >C^ 

TJNIVEHSITr; 


PREFACE. 


IT  is  an  unhappy  prejudice  which  associates  doctrine 
and  controversy.  These  sermons  are  not  controversial, 
although  they  are  largely  doctrinal.  They  treat,  it  is 
true,  of  points  greatly  in  dispute,  but  not  in  a  sectarian 
way,  and  seldom  with  a  denominational  reference  or 
object.  Indeed,  they  are  not  designed  to  unsettle  ex 
isting  convictions,  or  to  disturb  satisfied  conclusions. 
Those  who  are  content  with  other  opinions,  will  find  no 
occasion  to  read  them.  They  are  intended,  mainly,  for 
the  benefit  of  that  considerable  and  growing  class  who 
find  themselves  incapable  of  receiving  ordinary  state 
ments  of  Christian  doctrine,  and  are  yet  unwilling  to 
give  up  their  faith  in  the  Gospel.  There  are  state 
ments  in  this  volume  which  will  be  thought  destructive, 
and  be  read  with  pain,  by  some  persons  of  established 
and  confiding  faith.  But  they  are  serious  convictions, 
reverently  held,  and  are  set  forth  to  meet  the  necessities 
of  doubting  and  inquisitive  minds,  that,  left  to  them 
selves,  would  abandon  Christianity  entirely.  On  the 
other  hand,  there  are  other  statements,  which  may 
seem  retrogressive  and  superstitious  to  some  of  my  own 
immediate  brethren.  But  they,  also,  are  serious  con- 


iv  PREFACE. 

victions,  rationally  held,  and  are  published  to  meet  the 
necessities  of  devotional  and  anxious  minds  in  our  own 
body,  that,  left  to  themselves,  would  abandon  liberal 
Christianity  entirely. 

I  have  long  thought  that  Christian  theology,  to  be 
truly  seen,  must  be  seen  alive  and  at  work  in  the  hearts 
and  minds  of  religious  people ;  and  that  the  usual 
attempts  to  separate  it  from  its  vital  relations,  and  con 
sider  it  by  itself,  are  as  fatal  to  the  proper  understand 
ing  of  it,  as  must  be  the  study  of  the  vital  organs  of 
man,  and  their  phenomena,  in  a  corpse.  The  only  prof 
itable  and  decisive  discussion  of  theological  doctrines 
is  in  connection  with  the  great  practical  questions  of 
the  will,  the  affections,  and  the  conscience.  In  sincerely 
endeavoring  to  make  men  like  Christ,  we  find  ourselves 
using  the  ideas,  truths  and  doctrines,  that  will  alone 
effect  the  object,  and  discarding  the  errors  and  super 
stitions  which  hinder  the  work.  All  the  argumentation 
with  error,  or  supposed  error,  in  this  volume,  has  grown 
out  of  an  earnest  desire  to  move  actual  stumbling-blocks 
out  of  the  way  of  actual  people ;  all  the  questioning  of 
popular  opinions,  out  of  the  necessity  of  extricating 
struggling  souls  from  theological  embarrassments  that 
would  not  let  them  be  Christians.  It  will  be  found, 
however,  I  trust,  that  the  steady  object  of  the  volume 
is  to  build  up,  not  to  destroy ;  to  increase  charity,  not 
to  embitter  differences ;  to  make  Christians,  not  secta 
rians  of  any  name. 


PREFACE.  V 

Although  hardly  any  two  of  these  sermons  were 
written  with  reference  to  each  other,  and  not  one  of 
them  with  any  thought  of  publication,  a  certain  plan 
will  be  observed  in  their  arrangement.  I  intended,  at 
first,  to  style  the  volume  by  what  is  now  only  the  run 
ning  title,  "  The  Re-adjustment  of  Faith  ;  "  but  the  un 
willingness  to  be  thought  to  claim  success  in  a  work  in 
which  I  am  only  an  humble  striver,  induced  me  to  sur 
render  the  name.  A  chief  effort  of  my  whole  ministry 
has  been  to  meet,  not  the  scholastic,  but  the  practical 
and  spiritual  difficulties  which,  in  our  day,  make  faith 
in  Christianity  so  hard  to  thousands  of  the  more 
thoughtful  and  educated  class.  My  object  has  steadily 
been  to  awaken  spiritual  apprehension  without  wound 
ing  intellectual  laws ;  and  with  a  profound  respect  for 
the  understanding,  to  keep  it  in  its  due  subordination 
to  still  higher  faculties  of  the  soul. 

If  I  contribute  the  smallest  addition  to  the  evidence 
— now  slowly  accumulating  —  that  the  free  use  of  rea 
son  is  compatible  with  hearty  faith  in  the  Gospel,  and 
that  emancipation  from  superstition  and  human  author 
ity  does  not  involve  the  loss  of  a  tender  reverence  for 
divine  persons  and  things,  I  shall  have  abundant  cause 
to  rejoice  in  this  work  of  love. 

NEW  YORK,  December ;  1859. 


CONTENTS. 


I.— CONDITIONS  OF  INQUIRY. 

SSMON  PAGE 

I. — UNSETTLEDNESS  OF  RELIGIOUS  OPINIONS 3 

II. — SPIRITUAL   DISCERNMENT 19 

III. — PARADOX — ITS  PLACE  IN  RELIGIOUS  STATEMENT  AND  EXPE 
RIENCE 36 

IV. — THE  ABSOLUTE  IN  MORALS  AND  FAITH 51 

V. — CHRISTIANITY  AN  HISTORICAL  RELIGION 66 

VI.— " THE  WORD  OF  GOD" 80 

VII. — PRIVATE   INTERPRETATION 98 

VIII.— DOCILITY 114 

II.— GOD  AND  HIS  PROVIDENCE. 

IX. — THE    ABODE    OF    GOD    AND    CHRIST    IN   THE   DISCIPLE'S 

HEART 131 

X.— "  THE  KINGDOM  OF  GOD" U6 

XI. — RELIGION  CONSIDERED  AS  A  REFUGE  FROM   THE   MYSTERY 

OF  EVIL 167 

XII. — GENERAL  LAWS  AND  A  SPECIAL  PROVIDENCE  RECONCILED.  183 

III.— MAN. 

XIII. — HUMAN  NATURE — ITS  DIGNITY 205 

XIV. — HUMAN  NATURE — THE  ORIGIN  AND  QUALITY  OF  SIN 223 

XV. — HUMAN  NATURE — ITS  EXPOSURE  TO  SIN 241 

XVI. — HUMAN  NATURE — ITS  NEED  OF  THE  HOLY  SPIRIT 256 


viii  CONTENTS 

IV.— CHRIST. 

SERMON 

XVII— EXPECTATION   OF  CHRIST. 273 

XVIII. — THE   PREDESTINATION    OF   THE   SOUL  TO  CONFORMITY  TO 

CHRIST'S  IMAGE 288 

XIX. — THE  SUFFERING  CHRIST  AND   THE  LAW  OF  VICARIOUSNESS  303 
XX. — CHRIST — "  THE  HEAD  OF  ALL  PRINCIPALITY  AND  POWER."  319 


V.— THE  HOLY  SPIRIT  AND  THE  CHURCH. 

XXL— THE  SOUL'S  RENEWAL.. 339 

XXII. — NATURE,  ORIGIN,  AND  WORTH  OF  RELIGIOUS  EXCITEMENT.  358 
XXIIL- -SPIRITUALISM  AND  FORMALISM— THEIR  RELATIONS  TO  THE 

FORMATION  OF  RKLIGIOUS   CHARACTER 383 

XXIV. — THE   APPLICATION   OF  WORLDLY  WISDOM  TO  UNWORLDLY 

THINGS 401 

XXV. — COMPARISON    OF  THE    CLAIMS   OF    ENLIGHTENED  SELFISH 
NESS  AND  UNCALCULATING  LOVE 417 


I. 


CONDITIONS     OF    INQUIRY 


I. 

CONDITIONS    OF    INQUIRY 


SERMON  I. 

UNSETTLEDNESS  OF  RELIGIOUS  OPINIONS  A  MISFORTUNE. 

"  Seeking  rest,  and  findeth  none." — MATT,  xii.  43. 

WHAT  words  can  more  fitly  describe  trie  condition 
of  thousands  of  religious  thinkers  in  our  own  day  ? 
"  Seeking  rest,  and  findeth  none."  I  propose  to  consider 
and  describe  the  circumstances  which  have  given  over 
so  much  of  the  intelligence  of  our  times  to  indefinite- 
ness  and  unsettledness  of  religious  views.  I  assume 
that  this  state  of  things  exists,  and  that  it  is  to  be  de 
plored.  It  exists,  for  everybody  feels  it  who  seriously 
thinks  about  religion ;  it  is  to  be  deplored,  for  it  is  a 
strained,  exceptional,  and  suffering  condition  of  mind. 

Few  serious  and  awakened  spirits  will  remain  forever 
content  with  vagueness  and  generality.  The  excellent 
maxims  and  the  grand  ideas  which  good  and  wise  men 
nave  everywhere  commended — the  worth  of  virtue,  the 
beauty  of  goodness,  the  duty  of  obedience^  the  majesty 


4  THE    RE-ADJUSTMENT    OF    FAITH. 

and  glory  of  God,  the  disinterestedness  and  sanctity  of 
Christ,  do  not  adequately  meet  their  longing  for  a  more 
personal  faith.  The  heart  cannot  be  satisfied  with 
truths  about  God  and  about  Christ  ;  it  wants  to  know 
and  feel  God  Himself,  not  merely  to  know  and  feel 
that  there  is  a  God,  whom  it  ought  to  love,  and  who 
has  promised  to  love  it  ;  it  wants  to  know  and  feel 
Christ  Himself,  not  merely  to  know  something  or  much 
ahout  Christianity.  The  soul  must  needs  be  convinced 
and  satisfied  that  it  has  attained  its  right  relationship 
to  God,  has  come  as  near  to  Him  as  it  is  possible  to 
approach  a  spiritual  Being, — that  it  has  become  a  true 
and  practical  disciple  of  Christ,  and  actually  is  in  the 
experience  of  whatever  power  to  save  there  is  in  the 
Gospel,  before  it  can  be  in  any  true  peace  with  itself. 

Now,  to  meet  this  want  of  a  personal  religious  ex 
perience,  to  satisfy  this  craving  for  definiteness,  this 
anxiety  to  come  to  the  point,  and  to  make  an  end  of 
suspense  and  generality — in  short,  "  to  find  rest " — 
churches,  and  synods,  and  creeds,  and  Christian  teach 
ers,  have  endeavored,  in  past  times,  to  hedge  in  from 
the  broad  fields  of  moral  and  spiritual  speculation,  a 
beaten  way  ;  to  provide  specific  things  to  be  believed, 
particular  acts  to  be  done,  and  precise  moods  and 
frames  of  mind  to  be  experienced,  which  they  have 
either  really  thought,  or  at  any  rate  agreed  to  say,  con 
stituted  the  mental  and  moral  operation  called  a  per 
sonal  religious  experience. 

From  time  to  time  it  has  been  agreed -emong  the 
wise  and  good,  just  ivJiat  a  religious  man  should  be 
lieve,  ji\st  how  a  religious  .man  should  feel.  Did  he* 
believe  these  things,  did  he  feel  these  emotions,  he  was 


UNSETTLEDNESS    OF    RELIGIOUS    OPINIONS.  5 

a  Christian  ;  otherwise,  not.  These  articles  of  faith, 
these  frames  of  feeling,  and  the  particular  methods  of 
attaining  them — different  in  different  ages  and  different 
Churches — have  been  described  with  infinite  pains,  and 
have  given  birth  to  certain  conventional  terms  and  cer 
tain  conventional  feelings,  which  gradually  acquired 
and  still  possess  an  immense  sway,  and  to  certain  modes 
of  religious  discipline  of  the  most  positive  efficiency. 
Let  me  not  be  understood  as  objecting  to  this  course  ; 
on  the  contrary,  it  was  quite  impossible,  if  Christianity 
were  to  produce  any  positive  effect  in  the  world,  that 
its  truths  should  not  be  systematized  by  the  more 
thoughtful  for  the  less  thinking  ;  that  the  way  of  un 
derstanding  and  applying  it  should  not  be  methodized 
by  those  willing  to  take*  great  pains  in  its  behalf,  for 
the  benefit  of  those  willing  to  take  less,  or  little.  The 
Church  has  always  been  an  institution  whose  very  pur 
pose  was  to  make  a  science  and  a  method  of  what,  in 
itself,  was  vague  and  general  ;  to  give  directness  and 
tangibility  to  what  was  circuitous  and  evasive,  and  to 
enable  each  individual  to  touch  and  handle  for  himself 
that  which,  in  its  sublime  elevation,  seemed  to  resist 
personality,  and  tended  to  dwell  apart  from  all  private 
possession.  Happy  is  the  age  and  generation  in  which 
the  teachers  of  religion  themselves  unfeignedly  believe 
their  own  teachings  ;  the  age  in  which  the  creeds  and 
methods  of  religious  discipline  are  so  nicely  adjusted  to 
the  existing  intelligence,  in  such  harmony  with  the  ex 
perience,  the  science,  and  the  pursuits  of  men,  that 
they  are  heartily  and  frankly  trusted,  alike  by  their  ad 
ministrators  and  the  people  they  teach.  If  we  desire 
to  understand  the  great  influence  of  the  Catholic 


0  THE    EE-ADJUSTMENT    OF    FAITH. 

Church,  even  now,  when  its  power  has  so  much  de 
clined  in  the  most  civilized  countries,  we  must  trace  it 
to  the  enormous  amount  of  faith  it  laid  up  in  the  days 
when  its  creed  and  its  customs  were  in  genuine  and  un 
strained  accordance  with  the  minds  and  hearts  of  all 
Christian  people.  There  was  nothing  arbitrary  or 
forced  in  its  dogmas  when  they  were  adopted.  They 
then  entirely  met  the  best  sense  of  Christendom  and 
truly  expressed  its  wants.  And  the  same  is  true  of 
orthodox  Protestantism.  Consider  the  significance 
of  that  word  orthodox — the  right  doctrine.  By  what 
strength  of  conviction  alone,  by  the  aid  of  what  an 
overwhelming  public  sentiment  only,  can  any  doctrine 
be  pronounced  orthodox,  entirely  and  exclusively 
right  ?  Yet  orthodoxy  never  acquires  her  right  to  use 
that  title  without  reason.  At  the  time  theological 
sentiments  or  usages  have  the  self-confidence  to  assert 
themselves  to  be  orthodox,  they  are  truly  so  ;  that  is 
to  say,  they  best  express  the  convictions  and  wants  of 
the  Church,  or  of  the  efficient  and  substantial  body  of 
Christians  ;  as  compared  with  the  heterodoxy  they  de 
nounce  or  assail,  they  form  the  safe  and  judicious  way 
of  thinking,  and  express  the  highest  and  calmest  wis 
dom  of  the  time.  So  long  as  THE  Church  can  maintain 
the  emphasis  of  the  definite  article,  she  is  rightly  and 
truly  the  Church.  She  holds  the  confidence  and  salva 
tion  of  the  people  in  her  hands.1*  It  is  only  when  the 
criticism  or  opposition  of  a  growing  intelligence  suc 
ceeds  in  bringing  the  definite  article  into  popular  suspi 
cion,  so  that  it  is  no  longer  used  even  by  its  own  chief 
representatives,  Popes,  Cardinals,  and  Archbishops,  with 
out  a  consciousness  of  presumption,  that  the  Church  be- 


UNSETTLEDNESS   OF    KELIGIOUS   OPINIONS.  7 

comes  only  a  Church,  and  Catholic  is  fitly  changed 
into  Kornan.  Consider  the  enormous  testimony  to  its 
original  sway,  contained  in  the  very  word,  the  Catholic 
Church  ;  the  WHOLE,  only,  and  all-embracing  Church  ! 
What  power  of  faith,  what  unity  of  opinion,  what  re 
pose  of  sentiment,  are  implied  in  the  possible  assump 
tion  of  such  a  title  !  And  just  so  with  the  permitted 
use  of  the  self- assumed  title  of  Orthodox.  There  was 
no  presumption  in  either  of  these  phrases  at  the  time 
it  was  adopted.  The  Roman  Church  was  truly  the 
catholic  Church,  and  afterwards  the  doctrines  of  the 
Reformation  were  truly  the  orthodoxy  of  Protestant 
Christendom.  No  Church  could  possibly  take  either 
of  these  titles  without  general  consent  ;  and  general 
consent,  so  long  as  it  can  be  maintained  and  enforced, 
is  admirable  justification.  The  Catholic  Church  was 
right  in  seeking  to  maintain  its  unity  and  authority  to 
the  utmost.  Just  so  long  as  its  self-confidence  was 
complete,  its  mission  was  a  providential  and  a  holy 
one.  And  the  orthodoxy  of  the  Reformation — the 
mother  of  all  the  great  bodies  in  Protestant  Christen 
dom  in  our  day — was  right  in  defending  its  creeds  and 
discipline,  its  exclusive  and  special  character,  to  the 
utmost  of  its  power.  It  has  proved  this  right,  by  really 
being  the  principal  source  of  the  religious  life  of  Chris 
tendom  during  the  last  three  centuries  ;  as  the  Cath 
olic  Church  proved  it  by  being  the  principal  source 
of  the  Christian  life  of  the  world  for  the  fourteen 
previous  centuries.  Nor,  indeed,  can  any  Church  do 
much  for  the  world,  or  take  the  place  of  these  great 
institutions,  until  by  general  consent  it  is  able  to 
say,  without  arrogance  or  serious  dispute,  "I  am 


8  THE    RE-ADJUSTMENT    OF    FAITH. 

the  true. Catholic  Church;  I  am  the  real  Orthodoxy." 
For  consider,  that  the  whole  office  of  the  Church 
and  of  religious  institutions  is,  to  relieve  men  of  that 
vague,  indefinite,  suspended,  and  unsatisfied  frame, 
in  which  mere  individual  thinking  leaves  them — 
leaves  them  at  the  mercy  of  the  wild  ocean  of  gene 
ral  speculation — leaves  them  to  the  homeless,  harbor- 
less,  uncompassed,  and  unruddered  navigation  of 
their  own  limited  experience  and  observation.  Nobody 
can  tell  us  any  thing  of  the  perils,  the  storms,  the  ice 
bergs  of  that  Atlantic.  We  have  providentially  in  our 
generation  and  day  been  thrown  upon  it.  The  winds 
of  doctrine  that  have  tossed  us  hither  and  thither,  the 
latitudes  of  polar  cold,  the  dreadful  length  of  the  voy 
age,  the  immense  uncertainty  of  the  harbor,  the  be 
clouded  heaven,  the  fog- clothed  headlands — oh  !  how 
often  have  these,  the  necessary  experiences  of  all  hete 
rodoxy,  taught  us  the  inadequacy  of  mere  individualism 
to  bring  us  Christian  peace  and  rest  !  How  have  we 
sighed  for  the  pilotage  of  an  authorized  Church  ;  for 
the  chart  of  an  established  creed  ;  for  the  methods  and 
discipline  of  a  fixed  and  defined  religious  life  !  Our 
sighs  and  longings,  my  brethren,  are  the  honest  groans 
of  a  nature  made  to  find  repose  in  a  loving  and  settled 
faith  ;  and  they  unquestionably  are  the  very  pangs 
by  which  Providence  is  seeking  to  bring  forth  a  new 
catholic  Church — a  new  orthodoxy — that  is  to  say,  a 
creed  and  a  ritual  which  shall  have  the  honest  consent 
of  the  great  bulk  of  the  people — shall  express  its  new  or 
fresh  conceptions  of  Christianity  and  of  Christian  faith, 
discipline,  and  worship,  in  a  way  to  match  the  expe 
rience,  the  wisdom,  and  the  wants  of  a  new  era,  and  so 


TJNSETTLEDNESS    OF    KELIGIOUS    OPINIONS.  9 

to  secure  the  uncompromised,  the  unfeigned,  and  the 
hearty  confidence  of  Christendom. 

If  any  imagine  that  the  intellectual  condition 
in  which  the  Christian  world  now  is,  is  one  of  com 
fort  to  itself,  one  in  which  any  real  Catholicism,  or 
any  real  orthodoxy  exists — a  condition  in  which  the 
teachers  of  religion  are  in  sincere  and  simple  satisfac 
tion  with  their  own  creeds — or  in  which  the  adminis 
tration  of  religion  is  efficient,  and  meets  the  wants 
of  society — I  must  think  them  very  poor  observers.  It 
is  no  comfort  to  me  to  think  this ;  to  know  that 
doubt,  equivocation  and  vacillation,  describe  the  general 
condition  of  enlightened  Christendom  ;  that  scholars, 
thinkers,  statesmen,  men  of  science,  are  everywhere 
openly  or  indirectly,  by  what  they  say,  or  do  not  say — 
by  what  they  do,  or  do  not  do — bringing'  the  Church 
and  its  creeds  into  suspicion  or  contempt.  It  is  no 
comfort  to  me,  because  I  am  heterodox  and  have  to 
sound  my  own  perilous  way  in  the  great  deeps  of  spec 
ulation  and  religious  inquiry,  to  know  that  the  whole 
world  is  shivering  on  the  brink  of  that  terrible  sea — 
distrustful  of  its  old  charts,  ready  to  fling  overboard 
its  pilots,  and  quenching  the  very  stars  with  the  mists 
that  rise  from  its  own  turbulent  and  yeasty  intellect. 
I  may  see  that  this  is  inevitable  ;  that  it  has  been  of 
periodical  occurrence,  that  it  is  the  only  way  to  a  bet 
ter  faith.  Thank  God,  I  believe  this — as  I  believe  that 
the  original  Deluge  of  water  which  swept  away  a  race 
of  God-defying  people  ;  or  the  modern  deluge  of  popu 
lation  which  is  now  sweeping  away  with  melancholy 
haste  a  race  of  effete  idolaters  from  this  continent — • 
are  providential  decrees,  laden  with  beneficent  conse- 


10.  THE    RE- ADJUSTMENT    OF    FAITH. 

quences.  But  I  should  not  like  to  have  been  out  of 
Noah's  family  in  the  days  of  the  original  flood  ;  nor  to 
be  in  the  family  of  the  Ked-man  in  the  days  of  our 
own  ;  nor,  however  necessary  destructive  transitions 
may  be  for  society  and  humanity,  whether  of  a  politi 
cal,  social  or  religious  sort,  are  they  to  be  considered 
as  comfortable,  useful  and  saving,  for  those  who  are  the 
instruments  and  victims  of  them.  It  is  a  misfortune 
to  be  a  doubter,  a  dissentient,  and  a  questioner  ;  a 
grave  calamity  to  be  at  odds  with  the  Church  and  the 
creed — an  unpropitious  birthright,  to  be  born  into  a 
revolutionary  and  skeptical  era  !  And  no  man  is  fit  to 
occupy  the  position  of  a  useful  reformer  who  wholly 
enjoys  his  post. 

To  destroy  ought  to  be  a  work  of  reluctance  ;  to 
doubt,  a  matter  of  pain  ;  to  be  in  suspense  and  with 
out  clear  footing  and  an  open  road,  a  ground  of  seri 
ous  anxiety.  The  stormy  petrels  of  social  and  religious 
reformation,  who  enjoy  the  heavings  of  the  ocean  over 
which  they  scream,  and  plunge  into  the  dark  troughs 
that  yawn  in  the  once  smooth  and  safe  sea  with  deliri 
ous  eagerness,  are  not  birds  of  good  omen.  God  made 
them,  and  they  have  their  mission  ;  but  they  are  not 
the  doves  that  hover  peacefully  above  a  subsiding 
deluge,  nor  the  birds  of  passage  that  safely  wing  their 
way  over  commotion  to  stable  and  happy  shores.  The 
true  mediator  between  the  past  and  the  future — old 
opinions  that  no  longer  satisfy,  and  new  opinions  that 
are  yet  too  vague  to  supply  their  place — is  the  man 
who  is  too  honest  to  affect  a  confidence  in  the  old 
which  he  does  not  feel,  or  a  certainty  and  definiteness 
in  regard  to  the  new  which  he  has  not  attained — but 


UNSETTLEDNESS    OF    RELIGIOUS    OPINIONS.  11 

who  deplores  while  he  nohly  occupies,  his  attitude  of 
transition — who  tenderly  preserves  all  that  was  pre 
cious  and  nutritive  in  the  past,  while  he  yearningly  an 
ticipates  the  faith  of  the  Future,  and  honestly  admits 
the  unsatisfactoriness  of  the  Present.  If  our  revolution 
ary  fathers  had  hated  the  English  constitution  as  much 
as  they  hated  colonial  dependence  •  if  they  had  enjoyed 
the  conflict  with  their  own  Saxon  blood,  which  they 
bitterly  lamented  but  solemnly  undertook ;  had  they 
not  known  that  the  cause  they  fought  was  a  necessary 
evil,  we  should  have  had,  in  place  of  Washington  and 
Hamilton,  and  Jay  and  Madison  and  Adams — tem 
perate,  cautious,  high-toned  and  serious  patriots — 
leaders  like  the  filibusters  and  border-ruffians,  and 
wretched  pipers  on  popular  passions  and  prejudices 
who  now  disgrace  the  land — propagators  of  wars  with 
weak  powers — and  instigators  of  sectional  strifes. 
Warriors  that  love  the  sword  they  draw  and  the  blood 
they  drink  ;  reformers  that  revel  in  the  prejudices  and 
hatreds  they  arouse  ;  doubters  that  glory  in  their  de 
nials  and  their  skepticisms — are  men,  who,  if  they  do 
any  good,  do  it  as  the  hurricane,  the  locust  and  the 
lightning  do  good — in  the  overruling  of  Him,  who 
maketh  the  wrath  of  man  to  praise  Him,  and  out  of 
evil  still  educes  good. 

I  suppose,  my  brethren,  that  a  great  and  painful 
indefiniteness  of  opinion  respecting  the  doctrines  of 
Christianity  and  the  methods  of  the  religious  life,  exists 
in  our  generation  among  thinking  men  of  all  sects — 
secretly  in  most,  openly  in  many,  and  characteristically 
in  our  own  liberal  Body.  Compare  the  sacred  litera 
ture  of  our  day — the  published  sermons  of  all  denomi- 


12  THE    RE-ADJUSTMENT    OF   FAITH. 

nations,  the  religious  newspapers  of  all  sects,  with  the 
Bodies  of  divinity,  the  articles  of  faith,  the  catechisms 
and  creeds  of  fifty,  a  hundred,  and  five  hundred  years 
back.  Notice  the  contradictions,  the  inconsistencies, 
the  vacillations  of  theological  opinion  in  all  statements 
of  our  time  ;  how  vague  the  language  chosen,  how  un 
certain  the  note  struck,  how  many  the  loopholes  of 
evasion  !  Examine  the  children  of  the  Sunday- Schools 
of  all  orders,  and  see  whether  they  are  indoctrinated  in 
any  positive  system.  Try  if  you  can  get  a  definite 
declaration  of  theological  faith  from  your  intelligent 
friends  of  any  denomination.  Question  the  professed 
teachers  of  religion,  and  notice  how  slowly,  how  guard 
edly,  how  vaguely  they  answer  direct  inquiries  !  I  do 
not  set  forth  these  undeniable  facts  with  undivided 
pleasure.  They  indicate  discontent,  without  establish 
ing  improvement.  They  furnish  opportunities  for  re 
form,  without  yet  revealing  the  wisdom  •  to  use  these 
opportunities.  Movement  is  not  always  progress,  any 
more  than  revolutions  are  always  reforms — as  Mexico 
and  Central  America  might  admonish  us.  I  must 
know  the  causes  of  agitation  and  the  direction  of  move 
ment,  before  I  can  praise  them.  Men  are  as  much  in 
motion  when  they  run  away  from  truth,  as  when  they 
hurry  from  error ;  and  the  procession  moves  as  swiftly 
from  the  funeral  as  it  hastens  to  the  wedding.  The 
religious  dissatisfaction  and  unsettledness  of  the  day 
will  be  good  or  evil,  according  as  it  is  used.  Nor,  on 
the  other  hand,  am  I  complaining  of  this  indefiniteaeia. 
and  uncertainty,  this  restless  but  undetermined  activity, 
as  if  it  were  anybody's  fault,  or  could  possibly  be 
avoided.  It  is  an  actual,  a  real  experience  ;  as  real  as 


UNSETTLEDNESS    OF    RELIGIOUS    OPINIONS.  13 

a  fog  at  sea,  or  a  mist  on  land.  The  theological  mind 
of  the  world  is  actually,  and  by  reason  of  a  change  in 
human  circumstances,  in  an  unsettled  state.  Nobody 
seems  to  see  far  ahead,  or  to  be  certain  where  he  is. 
The  needle  is  violently  disturbed,  the  stars  obscured, 
and  the  position  of  the  ship  unknown.  The  brave  and 
honest  men  of  the  Church  know  that  they  are  seekers 
after  fixed  truth,  rather  than  present  possessors  of  it ; 
and  the  more  distinctly  they  avow  their  inability  to 
answer  direct  questions,  the  more  truthful  they  proba 
bly  are.  What  I  complain  of,  is  not  that  doubt  exists  ; 
not  that  doubt  is  courageously  avowed — above  all,  not 
that  a  positiveness  and  defmiteness  of  opinion  which 
does  not  exist  is  not  feigned  for  popular  effect.  But  I 
complain  of  the  seamanship,  which  imagines  that  theo 
logical  fog  and  mist,  however  honest  and  unavoidable, 
are  the  desirable  weather  for  the  Christian  voyage  ;  of 
the  folly,  which  undertakes  to  stay  on  the  vapory 
banks  of  a  spiritual  Newfoundland,  sailing  back  and 
forth  in  the  mist,  and  considers  it  a  return  to  stupid 
coasting  to  attempt  to  get  into  sunlight  and  clear 
water,  and  take  a  straight  course  for  a  harbor.  We 
live  in  times  when,  because  exact  political  and  re 
ligious  truth  are  hard  to  attain  to,  it  has  become  the 
fashion  to  call  the  endless  search  for  them  more  valua 
ble  than  their  actual  possession.  Thinking  is  mistaken 
for  the  results  of  thought ;  liberty  for  the  uses  of  free 
dom  ;  the  chase  for  the  game.  The  sportsman  who 
hunts  for  his  amusement  may  hold  this  opinion  ;  the 
pioneer  who  hunts  for  his  dinner  and  his  life  cannot 
accept  it.  To  be  ever  learning  and  never  able  to  come 
to  the  knowledge  of  the  truth,  may  suit  amateurs  of 


14  THE      RE-ADJUSTMENT    OF    FAITH. 

wisdom,  but  not  her  genuine  lovers.  They  wish  not  to 
pursue  a  goddess,  and  embrace  a  cloud  ;  but  to  over 
take  the  solemn  and  substantial  mistress  of  their 
hearts,  and  possess  her  forever.  And  I  must  think  the 
mood  so  common  with  the  intellectual  adventurers  of 
our  day,  which  pronounces  eternal  change  the  only 
fixity  ;  the  right  to  think,  the  only  thing  certain  con 
nected  with  thought  ;  and  the  love  of  truth,  more  im 
portant  than  truth  itself,  very  unfavorable  to  any  proper 
earnestness  of  conviction,  or  any  real  progress  of 
character. 

Let  us,  then,  distinctly  recognize  the  fact  that  the 
dimness  and  uncertainty  of  our  theological  and  religious 
opinions  is  not  due  to  the  essential  obscurity,  or  the 
fluctuating  and  evanescent  character  of  religious  truth 
itself;  that  although  men's  views  about  the  Gospel 
change,  that  Gospel  itself  is  the  same  yesterday,  to 
day,  and  forever ;  that  though  the  mind  of  particular 
generations  or  bodies  of  men  become  honestly  unsettled 
by  historical  events,  or  change  of  intellectual  position, 
so  that  their  views  of  Christianity — as  of  other  great 
and  valuable  interests — lose  their  clearness  and  require 
fresh  statement  before  they  can  have  efficacious  influ 
ence  ;  yet  that  this  unsettledness  is  an  evil  to  be  de 
plored  and  corrected,  and  toward  which  an  incessant 
vigilance  is  to  be  directed,  that  a  speedy  escape  from  it 
may  be  realized.  I  am  fully  convinced  that  as  precise 
and  definite  a  statement  of  Christian  doctrine  as  was 
ever  made,  will  yet  be  made  again,  a  statement  which 
will  express  the  essential  truths  of  revealed  religion,  in 
a  manner  to  meet  the  experience,  wants,  and  faith  of 
the  Christian  world  at  large,  and  which  will  produce 


UNSETTLEDNESS    OF    RELIGIOUS    OPINIONS.  15 

that  unity  of  faith,  which  it  is  now  the  fashion  to  de 
scribe  only  as  a  unity  of  spirit.  The  Church  wants 
not  only  unity  of  spirit,  but  the  bond  of  a  common 
faith  ;  not  because  agreement  is  so  desirable,  but  be 
cause  truth  is  so  important,  and  agreement  is  only 
common  success  in  the  attainment  of  universal  truth. 
Those  indeed  who  imagine  that  religious  truth  has  no 
outlines  or  boundaries  ;  that  in  her  case  one  thing  is  as 
true  as  another ;  that  all  formulas  are  equally  errone 
ous  or  equally  veracious,  may  be  permitted  to  doubt 
this  result.  But,  I  cannot  see  why  truths  about  God, 
the  source  of  all  truth,  should  necessarily  be  left  in 
perpetual  vagueness  ;  nor  why  Christianity  alone,  of 
all  systems  of  opinion,  purely  because  it  is  divine,  should 
therefore  be  absolutely  indescribable.  There  may  be 
that  about  it  which  is  past  finding  out,  which  is  true 
of  every  thing,  a  grain  of  sand,  or  a  sand-fly,  but  that 
its  characteristic  features  and  truths  are  of  this  nature, 
ought  not  to  be  acknowledged.  Vagueness  and  the 
claim  of  infinite  obscurity  are  convenient  covers  for  in 
dolence  and  weariness.  So  long  as  this  round  world 
was  not  circumnavigated,  it  might  be  imagined  to  be 
shaped  like  a  tortoise,  or  an  elephant,  or  a  man,  or  to  be 
a  boundless  plane,  or  it  might  be  safely  asserted  that  its 
form  was  past  the  possibility  of  human  discovery  and 
determination ;  but  the  time  came  very  soon  when 
positive  knowledge  banished  this  indolent  speculation, 
and  silenced,  by  actual  disproof,  the  convenient  assertion 
of  the  unknowable  shape  of  man's  present  abode.  And 
so  it  is  with  all  knowledge.  Laziness  and  fatigue  pro 
nounce  clear  views  unattainable  in  regard  to  all  very 
obscure  subjects  ;  but  industry  and  curiosity,  and  the 


16  THE   RE-ADJUSTMENT   OF   FAITH. 

love  of  truth,  are  perpetually  bringing  within  the  realm 
of  positive  science  what  long  lay  hopelessly  out  in  the 
fields  of  crude  speculation.  So,  I  doubt  not,  it  is  des 
tined  to  be  with  Christian  theology.  Christianity  is 
intended  to  be  accurately  understood ;  and  because 
successive  ages  have  failed  to  define  it  satisfactorily  for 
their  heirs,  we  need  not  conclude  that  no  successful 
and  exhaustive  statement  of  it  can  yet  be  made.  It 
might  as  well  be  concluded  that,  because  the  Chinese, 
Ptolemaic,  and  Copernican  systems  of  astronomy  sup 
planted  each  other,  a  new  system  would  presently 
drive  out  the  satisfactory  and  self-evidencing  system 
we  have  now  attained  !  The  time  comes  when  the 
positive  and  complete  truth  is  known  about  things  ; 
and,  contrary  to  sentimental  expectation,  their  interest, 
instead  of  diminishing,  is  only  enhanced  by  the  clear 
ness  with  which  they  are  known.  It  will  be  so  with 
the  Gospel ;  and  to  hasten  this,  should  be  our  earnest 
and  prayerful  endeavor. 

I  believe,  my  brethren,  that  the  time  is  approaching 
when  a  Christian  theology  will  be  more  truly  within  the 
reach  of  the  world  than  it  has  ever  been  since  the  days 
of  the  old  Catholic  Church,  Oh  !  that  the  crystallizing 
minds  would  appear,  to  bring  into  shapes  of  all  com 
manding  beauty  the  tremulous  fluid  into  which  the 
old  theologies  have  dissolved  !  Doubt,  speculation, 
license,  have  hat!  a  long  enough  era.  Religion  as  a  life, 
a  consolation,  and  an  inspiration,  is  losing  its  power, 
because  the  vessels  that  used  to  hold  it  are  broken,  and 
there  are  no  new  buckets  to  drop  into  the  well.  Mean 
while,  a  mixture  of  worldly  prudence  and  morality  is 
doing  the  work  of  absent  faith.  It  is  fortunate  that 


UNSETTLEDNESS    OF    KELIGIOUS    OPINIONS.  17 

we  have  so  decent  a  substitute.  But  it  would  be  blind 
ness  indeed,  not  to  see  that  worship,  that  faith,  that 
"  peace  in  believing "  are  left  now  with  the  ignorant 
and  the  unthinking,  while  the  intelligence  and  power 
of  the  world  are  running  after  substitutes  for  religion  in 
place  of  religion  itself.  It  is  not  in  criticism  of  others, 
but  of  ourselves  among  others,  that  I  say  this  ;  for  I 
think  it  cannot  be  denied,  that  the  most  acceptable  ad 
ministration  of  the  Gospel  in  our  day,  is  that  in  which 
morality  is  dressed  out  and  flutters  in  the  plumes  of 
faith  ;  not  that  in  which  faith  itself  carries  morality 
with  her  on  the  wings  of  worship  and  steadfast  and 
clear  conviction,  and  merges  it  in  a  living  piety.  Is  it 
ever  to  continue  so  ?  Is  there  to  be  no  more  quietness 
of  mind,  positiveness  and  certainty  of  conviction,  abso 
lute  knowledge  of  God,  and  satisfied  communion  with 
Christ,  in  the  Church  ?  Nay,  is  there  to  be  no  Church  ? 
but  a  mere  figment  of  a  church — a  church  without  a 
creed,  and  without  a  worship — Mr.  A/s  church,  or  Mr. 
B/s  church,  and  not  the  Church  of  God,  or  the  Church 
of  Christ ;  ordinances  barely  tolerated — opinions  ut 
terly  at  variance — with  nothing  tangible  and  settled  to 
lay  hold  upon  ?  I  am  sure  this  state  of  things  should 
not,  cannot,  continue.  It  is  more  than  human  nature 
can  bear.  It  leaves  the  finest  and  tenderest  souls  in 
the  world  in  a  state  of  ruinous  exposure.  They  fret 
themselves  nearly  to  madness,  for  the  want  of  religious 
repose.  It  frightens  the  religious-minded  back  into 
what  is  now  a  superstition,  the  Eoman,  no  longer  the 
Catholic  Church  ;  it  drives  the  strong  into  absolute 
scepticism  and  silent  despair. 

Brethren,  let  us  be  up  and  doing.     Make  up  your 


18  THE    RE-ADJUSTMENT    OF   FAITH. 

minds  that  definite  and  settled  opinions  in  theology,  if 
not  within  easy  reach,  are  possible,  are  desirable,  are  wor 
thy  of  intense  inquiry.  Shake  off  this  lethargy  which  al 
lows  you  to  remain  in  eternal  suspense,  this  indifference 
which  you  call  liberality,  this  apathy  you  name  candor. 
For  my  own  part,  I  believe  that  the  sober,  historic 
Unitarianism  of  five-and-twenty  years  ago  needs  only 
*to  be  rigidly  examined,  Scripture  in  hand,  experience 
in  full  view,  to  prove  the  basis  of  a  much  nearer  approach 
to  a  statement  of  doctrine  in  which  universal  Christen 
dom  can  agree,  than  any  thing  else  which  has  been  pre 
sented  for  ages.  What  has  gone  beyond  it,  has  fallen 
into  Deism  ;  what  has  kept  behind  it,  is  still  in  mo 
tion  ;  what  has  gone  one  side  of  it,  is  compelled,  sooner 
or  later,  to  fall  into  its  track.  It  needs,  I  doubt  not, 
some  finer  and  more  generous  statement,  to  win  the 
ear  and  heart  of  Christendom  ;  but  I  feel  a  mighty 
confidence  that,  the  first  time  now  that  Christian  the 
ology  clears  her  trumpet  and  utters  a  not  uncertain  note, 
the  voice  of  Channing  will  be  the  dominant  of  the 
strain.  If,  as  a  body,  we  could  distinctly  affirm,  with 
a  good  conscience,  that  positive,  historic  faith — leaving 
the  frigidness  of  rationalism  and  the  indefiniteness  of 
sentimentalism  aside — I  think  we  should  start  the 
Christian  world  from  its  theological  dreaminess,  and 
articulate,  in  wholesome,  credible,  inspiring  words,  the 
truth  that  now  sticks  and  sputters  in  the  throat  of 
Christendom. 

God  grant  us  the  utterance  which  our  languid 
organs  refuse,  and  give  us  the  blessed  privilege  of 
speaking  the  word  which  would  set  chaos  in  order,  and 
for  an  ecclesiastical  ruin  furnish  Christendom  with  a 
Church  ! 


SERMON  II. 

% 

SPIRITUAL   DISCERNMENT. 

"And  even  things  without  life,  giving  sound,  whether  pipe  or  harp,  ex 
cept  they  give  a  distinction  in  the  sounds,  how  shall  it  be  known  what 
is  piped  or  harped  ?  " — 1  COR.  xiv.  7. 

THE  apostle  uses  this  illustration  in  dwelling  on 
the  importance  of  distinctness  in  religious  ideas.  Un 
doubtedly  there  is  a  great  want  of  distinction  in  the 
sounds  of  the  pulpit.  Eeligious  ideas  and  experiences 
are  vague  and  confused,  as  they  fall  on  the  learner's 
ear.  But  this  is  not  wholly,  perhaps  not  chiefly,  the 
fault  of  the  teacher ;  it  is  quite  as  much  the  want  of  a 
disciplined  ear  in  the  hearer  as  of  a  careless  finger  in 
the  performer  ;  and  it  is  also,  still  more  than  either, 
the  essential  difficulty  of  the  subject.  The  music  of 
divine  truth  is  the  most  delicate  and  difficult  music  to 
read  or  sing.  Leaving,  however,  the  peculiar  figure 
used  in  the  text,  I  wish  now  to  enter  into  a  considera 
tion  of  the  grounds  of  the  confusion  and  perplexity  which 
involve  religious  ideas  ;  to  show  how  and  why  religious 
language  is  so  obscure,  and  religious  doctrine  so  contra 
dictory  ;  why  it  is  that,  in  regard  to  spiritual  things, 


20  THE    RE-ADJUSTMENT    OF    FAITH. 

we  find  it  so  hard  to  keep  definite,  tangible,  and  dis 
tinct  notions  ;  and  then  to  exhibit  the  advantages  and 
importance  of  making  all  the  distinctions  and  seeking 
all  the  definiteness  which  is  possible.  No  one,  for 
instance,  who  reads  St.  John's  gospel  or  Paul's  qpistles, 
can  fail  to  feel  baffled  and  discouraged  by  the  seeming 
contradiction  and  confusion  of  ideas  and  terms  in  those 
sacred  pages — faith  and  works,  God's  grace  and  man's 
obedience,  free-will  and  strict  dependence,  all  running 
into  each  other,  until  it  seems  almost  useless  to  attempt 
to  say  whether  one  thing  is  not  as  true  as  another.  In 
like  manner,  Christ's  work,  and  God's  work,  and  man's 
work,  in  human  salvation,  seem  inseparable,  and  each 
to  occupy  the  other's  place.  The  prospect  presented  to 
the  unpractised  eye  is  certainly  that  of  a  dissolving 
view,  in  which  different  objects  contend  for  the  same 
space. 

I  purpose  now  to  explain  the  grounds  of  this 
obscurity  and  coni'usion,  rather  in  the  way  of  a  fuller 
statement  of  it,  than  in  any  philosophical  method  ;  and 
next  to  give  some  hints  for  the  gradual  correction  of  it ; 
to  show  how  discrimination  and  clearness  are  possible, 
and  why  greatly  important. 

Man,  by  constitution  and  circumstances,  is  so 
mixed  up  with  nature,  with  society,  with  history,  with 
the  universe,  with  Christ,  and  with  God,  that  it  is 
never  easy  to  see  or  to  say  where  he  ends  and  they 
begin,  what  he  is  in  himself,  and  what  he  is  only  in 
them.  His  powers  and  their  powers  are  so  blended 
and  co-operative,  that  it  demands  a  perhaps  impossible 
discrimination  to  assign  to  each  its  precise  place.  Thus, 
who  can  say  exactly  where  man's  power  begins  and 


SPIRITUAL    DISCERNMENT.  21 

nature's  ends  in  the  work  of  husbandry  ?  how  much 
of  human  industry  and  skill,  and  how  much  of  natural 
fertility  and  divine  chemistry  enter  into  the  products 
of  the  farmer's  fields  ?  Was  i£  this  hoeing,  or  that 
shower  ;  was  it  this  good  seed,  or  that  warm  weather, 
that  added  so  much  to  the  crop  of  corn  ?  "  Paul  may 
plant  and  Apollos  water,  but  God  giveth  the  increase/' 
But  God  will  not  give  the  increase  if  Paul  does  not 
plant  and  Apollos  does  not  water ;  and  He  does  not 
need  to  claim  the  credit  of  Paul's  industry  or  Apollos's 
faithfulness.  Again,  you  attempt  to  move  a  heavy 
body  ;  you  apply  a  lever  ;  you  call  on  the  laws  of  sci 
ence,  the  powers  of  nature,  to  assist  you.  Is  it  you,  or 
is  it  gravitation  that  has  moved  the  weight  ?  How 
much  is  it  you  and  how  much  is  it  nature  ?  Nature 
could  not  have  moved  it  without  you,  and  you  could 
not  have  moved  it  without  nature.  So  if  you  study 
closely  the  philosophy  of  human  activity,  you  will  find 
that  man's  highest  results  come  from  the  skilful  advan 
tage  he  takes  of  nature's  powers.  He  sets  his  sails  for 
her  mighty  breezes,  and  lo,  commerce  is  born  !  his 
mills  against  her  powerful  currents,  and  behold  manu 
factures  arise  !  he  shuts  up  heated  water  in  strong 
prisons  forged  in  these  mills,  and  his  bulky  vessels 
move  swiftly  up  against  the  strongest  tides,  or  run 
against  winds  and  waves  ;  and  so  man  conquers  nature 
with  her  own  weapons.  Which  have  we  most  to  ad 
mire  as  we  look  at  a  locomotive  drawing  a  tremendous 
train  with  a  bird's  swiftness  and  ease — .the  skill  of  man, 
the  vast  powers  of  nature,  or  the  Creator  of  nature  and 
man  ?  Who  shall  assign  the  precise  part  which  each 
has  in  this  magnificent  result  ?  You  have  said  nothing 


22  THE    RE-ADJUSTMENT    OF    FAITH. 

to  the  purpose,  when  you  say  to  God,  as  the  author  of 
every  thing,  belongs  all  the  praise.  It  is  true,  yet  not 
at  all  the  truth  it  is  profitable  to  consider  ;  for  God 
has  -chosen  to  distribute  and  discriminate  powers  and 
responsibilities.  God  might  make  locomotives,  as  he 
has  made  water  and  heat  and  iron  ;  but  he  does  not. 
Nature,  too,  might  grow  railroads  or  magnetic  tele 
graphs,  as  she  does  grow  forests  and  gravel-pits  and 
the  metals,  and  all  the  various  things  from  which  rail 
roads  and  telegraphs  are  made  ;  but  she  does  not ;  and 
man's  work  is  deliberately  and  providentially  made  real 
and  distinct  from  her's.  Yet  it  becomes  man  to  be 
cautious  how  he  uses  nature,  or  how  he  overrates  his 
own  part  or  powers  in  their  partnership,  or  she  will 
punish  his  presumption  and  mortify  his  pride. 

And  as  with  nature,  so  is  man  mixed  up  with  civili 
zation,  in  a  way  to  make  it  very  difficult  to  say  what 
he  does  or  knows  or  feels  in  his  own  individual  and 
independent  right,  and  what  only  as  a  citizen,  an  heir 
of  the  past,  a  creature  of  his  time  and  his  circum 
stances.  He  perhaps  thinks  he  owes  his  personal 
safety  to  his  own  strength,  or  courage,  or  good  fortune, 
and  little  estimates  the  rivers  of  blood,  the  generations 
of  disorder,  the  slow  and  expensive  experiments  which 
that  civilization  has  cost,  which  now  throws  its  laws^  its 
affections,  its  customs  around  him  !  The  stranger  ob 
serves  not  the  police  that  observe  him  and  watch  and 
defend  his  way  through  the  city  ;  nor  the  indomitable 
will  behind  them ;  nor  all  the  vast  political  machinery 
that  quiets  and  controls  a  great  metropolis  ;  and  he 
imagines  that  his  security  or  his  unimpeded  freedom 
are  due  wholly  to  his  own  good  behavior,  or  prowess, 


SPIRITUAL    DISCERNMENT.  23 

or  excellent  fortune.  And  in  part  they  are  due  to 
these,  but  how  much  more  to  the  social  order  which 
embosoms  him  ! 

In  the  same  manner  man  is  mixed  up  with  his 
fellow-men.  What  he  does  as  a  single,  isolated  intelli 
gence,  and  what  he  does  as  a  creature  of  affections,  a 
son,  a  brother,  a  child,  a  friend,  a  lover,  a  rival,  a 
seeker  of  social  position  or  public  sway — what  he  does 
as  a  private  person,  and  what  he  does  as  a  social  being, 
are  so  inextricably  mixed  up  that  nobody  can  say  off 
hand,  or  perhaps  after  the  utmost  deliberation,  what 
the  same  man  would  have  been,  brought  up  alone,  (if 
such  a  bringing  up  were  human  or  possible,)  and,  in 
society.  And  yet  man  is  the  same  being,  in  or  out  of 
society.  And  so  is  the  cunning  instrument  the  same 
in  the  empty  house,  where  no  skill  exists  that  can  touch 
it,  and  under  the  hands  of  the  most  accomplished  per 
former.  Man  has  all  his  powers  before  society  touches 
him,  or  after  it  has  ceased  to  touch  him ;  but  those 
powers  are  as  if  they  were  not,  till  brought  out  by  his 
social  relations. 

And  in  a  not  unlike  way  are  we  all  mixed  up  with 
Christianity,  or  Christ.  Do  we  suppose  the  world  is  the 
same  world  now  as  that  to  which  Christ  came  ?  No. 
His  truth,  spirit,  gospel,  has  entered  into  it  as  leaven,  and 
modified  ifc ;  or  as  a  vital  principle,  and  organized  and 
fashioned  it ;  until  no  pious  soul  can  tell  how  far  it  is 
Christianized  by  the  inherited  and  unconscious  influence 
of  public  sentiment.  The  common  religious  faith  of  the 
world,  which  it  costs  us  no  trouble  to  believe,  which  in 
deed  it  costs  us  much  trouble  to  disbelieve,  is  the  best 
part  of  our  Christian  inheritance.  If  our  faith  in  God's 


24  THE    RE-ADJUSTMENT    OF    FAITH. 

paternal  character,  in  immortality,  in  man's  brother 
hood  with  man,  in  the  sanctity  of  truth  and  chastity, 
of  womanhood  and  childhood,  were  a  matter  of  in 
dividual  option  or  research,  depended  upon  argument, 
and  had  to  be  attained  as  we  attain  our  calling  or  pro- 
fes^ion,  by  arduous  personal  labor,  the  world  would  be 
a  hopeless  world.  But  these  are  the  happy,  blessed 
prejudices  of  our  age — for  prejudices  may  be  true  as 
well  as  false — and  we  act  upon  them  as  a  collective 
society,  taking-it  for  granted  that  other  men  think  pre 
cisely  as  we  do  upon  these  fundamental  points,  in 
which  assumption  we  are  fully  justified.  This,  how 
ever,  does  not  at  all  alter  the  fact  that  the  personal, 
individual  character  has  just  as  much  to  do  for  itself 
as  though  Christianity  were  just  born  into  the  world. 
What  Christianity  does  for  us  spontaneously,  is  just  so 
much  pure  gain  ;  but  it  does  not  diminish  our  private 
responsibility,  nor  lessen  our  freedom.  Men  are  wicked 
in  the  most  advanced  states  of  society  and  the  most 
Christianized  communities,  and  all  the  grades  of  faith 
fulness  and  unfaithfulness  are  as  distinctly  marked  in 
an  elevated  as  in  a  low  state  of  society,  in  the  nine 
teenth  century  as  in  the  ninth,  or  the  first,  or  before 
the  first.  And  so  although  Christianity  is  a  part  of 
modern  civilization,  it  is  also,  in  another  sense,  a  fresh 
revelation  to  every  man  w?ho  penetrates  through  its 
history  and  social  life,  to  its  original  facts  and  persons, 
or  brings  himself,  by  independent  efforts  of  mind  and 
heart,  into  direct,  in  place  of  merely  common  or  uni 
versal  relations  with  it. 

And  finally,  I  may  add,  that  man  is  so  mixed  up 
with  God,  who  is  his  Creator,  the  original  inspirer  of 


SPIRITUAL    DISCERNMENT.  25 

his  intellect  and  heart,  the  informer  of  his  understand 
ing  and  the  light  of  his  conscience,  that  it  is  a  most 
difficult  thing  to  say  what  he  does  in  his  own  character, 
and  in  the  strength  of  his  nature  and  will,  and  what  as 
in  and  from  God.  Who  can  nicely  distinguish  between 
thought  and  the  objects  of  thought,  or  love  and  the  ob 
jects  of  love  ?  What  are  the  inspirations  of  genius  ? 
Is  its  light  its  own,  or  reflected  ?  Is  the  saint's  holi 
ness  his  own  or  his  Lord's  ?  Is  our  religious  strength 
intrinsic  or  communicated  ?  We  must  answer,  if  we 
speak  with  candor,  both.  We  can  judiciously  adopt  no 
theory  in  any  supposed  honor  of  God,  which  flings  up 
what  God  has  taken  infinite  pains  to  fix  fast — man's 
freedom  and  separate  existence.  God  does  not  want 
man  merged  in  himself,  otherwise  He  would  never  have 
given  him  an  independent  existence.  Man  feels  his 
freedom,  knows  his  responsibility — feels  and  knows  this, 
as  the  basis  of  all  his  knowledge — and  whenever  theol 
ogy  or  philosophy  has  sophisticated  the  simplicity  of 
this  truth,  he  has  been  landed  in  a  dreamy  fatalism,  or 
an  immoral  pantheism,  which  is  very  similar  to  mate 
rialism  or  atheism  in  its  last  results.  Yet  man's  self 
hood  is  not  an  existence  out  of  God,  such  as  makes  all 
approaches  from  God  strange,  supernatural,  or  foreign 
and  remarkable.  When  you  hew  a  piece  of  clay  or 
wood  from  nature's  breast,  and  fashion  it  into  a  ball 
which  obeys  the  motions  of  your  hand,  it  still  continues 
to  feel  all  the  forces  of  nature  as  much  as  ever.  Gravi 
tation  has  not  lost  an  atom  of  its  power  over  it,  and  in 
its  utmost  departures  from  its  original  place  or  mother- 
rock  or  tree,  it  carries  the  control  of  nature  with  it. 
The  globule  that  madly  dances  in  the  rapids  of  Niagara 
2 


26  THE    RE-ADJUSTMENT    OF   FAITH. 

is  as  much  in  the  meshes  of  law,  as  the  dew-drop  that 
falls  in  the  stillest  night  of  August.  So  man,  a  spirit, 
the  intelligent  moral  offspring  of  God,  has  in  his  nature 
permanent  relations  with  God — blood-relations,  so  to 
speak.  God  is  near  him  ;  his  nature  leans  hack  upon 
his  Maker.  There  is  no  nearness  which  place  or  sense 
could  exhibit  or  establish  so  close  as  this  spiritual 
relationship.  The  English  mother  that  has  sent  her 
own  heart's  blood  to  beat  beneath  St.  George's  cross  in 
the  trenches  before  Sebastopol,  is  nearer  to  the  young 
ensign  as  he  keeps  his  midnight  watch,  though  the 
ocean  and  two  seas  intervene,  than  his  companion  that 
shakes  with  the  same  cold,  or  languishes  with  the  same 
fatigue.  Thoughts  of  home,  communion  with  the  un 
seen  and  absent,  are  more  natural  to  the  soldier  than 
the  foreign  sky  that  blazes  over  his  head,  or  the  soil 
that  is  so  palpable  to  his  pickaxe  or  his  weary  limbs. 
Absent  do  I  call  the  souls  that  yearn  towards  each 
other  ?  I  am  too  bold.  I  know  not  that  they  are  not 
more  truly  present  to  each  other  than  ever  the  bodies  that 
make  them  visible  can  be  !  And  surely  God  is  not  far  from 
our  prayers,  from  our  thoughts  of  Him,  from  our  need  of 
Him  !  The  truth  is,  He  is  so  near,  that,  like  the  babe 
whose  eyes  are  blinded  by  the  bosom  that  presses  and 
feeds  it,  we  cannot  see  our  Parent.  Divine  influences, 
suggestions,  support,  are  as  natural  to  the  soul  as  the 
influences  and  fructifications  of  the  sun  to  the  earth, 
and  the  earth  does  not  know  that  the  sun  is  not  a  part 
of  herself.  In  like  manner,  God's  spirit,  power,  will, 
is  operative  over  millions  that  do  not  distinguish  it  from 
their  own  soul ;  but  it  is  not  the  less  distinguishable 
because  it  is  not  distinguished.  Men  do  not  sponta- 


SPIKITUAL    DISCERNMENT.  27 

neously  study  the  operation  of  their  own  minds,  or  sep 
arate  their  various  powers  by  careful  analysis.  Yet 
these  powers  are  separable,  and  it  is  immensely  instruc 
tive  arid  disciplinary  to  separate  them.  So,  God  in  us 
is  not  naturally  distinct  in  our  view.  We  confound 
Him  with  our  own  nature  in  its  highest  activity  ;  but 
Christian  meditation  and  experience  succeed  in  putting 
God,  as  it  were,  away  from  the  soul,  that  it  may  the 
more  gratefully  and  adoringly  contemplate  Him,  and  so 
bring  Him  nearer  than  ever.  Moreover,  because  God 
is  in  us,  and  is  the  light  of  our  conscience,  and  the 
warmth  of  our  heart,  and  the  energy  of  our  wills,  He  is 
not  us  and  we  are  not  Him,  any  more  than  the  light  in 
our  chamber  is  the  sun,  or  than  our  chamber  itself  is 
the  sun.  Yet  confessedly,  it  is  not  easy  to  say  where 
God's  suggestions  and  our  own  thoughts,  God's  strength 
and  our  own  vigor — where  ourselves  and  where  He  be 
gin  and  end  ;  and  therefore  we  find  it  equally  natural 
to  say,  that  we  can  do  nothing  without  God,  or  that  we 
can  do  all  things  ;  that  we  have  great  power,  or  that 
we  have  none  at  all — just  as  we  fasten  our  thoughts  upon 
the  fact  of  our  freedom,  or  on  the  fact  of  our  depend 
ence — just  as  we  include  God's  never-denied  aid  with  a 
filial  self-appropriation,  or  exclude  it,  that  we  may  the 
more  consider  and  magnify  it. 

The  all-important  fact  to  keep  in  view  is,  that 
God's  influence  is  a  natural  influence,  not  an  unnatural 
one,  and  is  applied  spiritually,  and  in  accordance  with 
the  laws  of  our  souls.  It  is  from  looking  for  God  out 
of  the  soul,  and  expecting  to  see  Him  with  the  eye  of 
sense,  or  else  with  the  eye  of  faith  regarded  as  a  differ- 


28  THE    RE-ADJUSTMENT   OF    FAITH. 

ent  eye  from  the  eye  of  the  soul,  that  so  many  miss 
Him  forever,  though  He  be  so  nigh. 

Our  various  relations,  my  brethren,  with  nature, 
society,  humanity,  Christ,  God,  are,  as  we  have  seen, 
inevitable,  and,  up  to  a  certain  point,  independent  of 
our  recognition  or  furtherance.  So  close  are  they  that 
to  a  great  extent,  men  do  not  separate  or  discriminate 
between  themselves  and  the  forces  of  Nature,  Society, 
Christianity,  and  Deity,  but  confound  themselves  with 
the  universe,  or  rather  come  only  to  a  very  low  con 
sciousness  of  their  independence.  Yet  all  intellectual 
progress,  and  I  may  add,  moral  progress,  depends  upon 
discrimination.  We  must  put  things  in  their  places 
and  keep  them  there.  No  man  enjoys  nature  or  can 
use  nature's  powers  to  great  advantage,  until  he  sees 
that  he  himself  is  not  a  part  of  nature,  or  nature  of 
him  ;  that  nature  has  an  existence  independent  of  him, 
and  is  the  proper  subject  of  curious  and  profound  study. 
The  native  familiarity  of  man  with  nature,  as  if  she 
were  the  mere  extension  of  his  own  person,  is  fatal  either 
to  wonder,  curiosity,  knowledge,  or  the  use  of  nature. 
Those  tribes  and  races,  therefore,  that  live  most  in  the 
bosom  of  nature,  really  know  and  care  least  about  her 
— have  the  least  enthusiasm  for  her  charms,  the  least 
knowledge  of  her  powers.  It  is  only  when  man  distin 
guishes  accurately  between  himself  and  nature,  his 
powers  and  hers,  and  his  destiny  and  hers,  that  nature 
becomes  charming,  instructive,  and  greatly  serviceable 
to  him. 

All  the  great  discoveries  of  nature's  powers,  all  the 
great  poetry  in  praise  of  nature,  the  whole  department 
of  landscape-painting,  are  modern,  and  have  come  in  with 


SPIRITUAL    DISCERNMENT.  29 

the  ages  that  have  lived  less  in  immediate  contact  with 
and  dependence  on  nature,  and  since  nature  lost  her 
place  as  man's  superior  or  equal. 

And  so  with  society.  Man  is  a  social  being.  But 
the  benefits  of  society,  the  recognition  of  its  powers, 
charms,  uses,  origin,  value,  are  dependent  upon  man's 
recognition  of  his  asocial  or  independent  destiny — his 
strict  individuality,  his  personal  accountableness,  his 
capacity  for  an  inner  solitary  life.  Men  were  not  most 
sociable  when  they  lived  most  together.  The  Indian, 
who  dwells  in  tribes,  is  the  most  reserved  of  human 
creatures  ;  and  society  developed  none  of  its  perfections, 
while  it  continued  a  mere  instinct,  or  coarse  necessity. 
Society,  to  be  valuable,  must  be  the  common  relations 
of  uncommon  people  ;  the  agreement  of  opposite  and 
unlike  experiences  ;  the  deliberate  and  intentional  in 
tercourse  of  those  who  live  for  the  most  part  separate 
from  each  other.  A  valuable  social  circle  is  constituted 
by  the  individual  and  distinct  values  of  the  various 
persons  who  compose  it,  each  with  his  own  experience 
and  views.  Therefore,  the  highest  sociableness  will  be 
long  to  a  community  in  which  private  homes  are  most 
sacred,  and  the  best  society  will  be  composed  of  those 
who  most  value  solitude.  People  who  live  together 
constantly  have  neither  zest  for,  nor  improvement  in, 
their  intercourse,  and  therefore  out-of-door  nations,  and 
people  who  make  society  their  rule,  lose  the  self-respect, 
the  moral  elevation,  the  domestic  happiness,  the  high 
est  uses  of  friendship  and  affection,  which  are  the  no 
blest  fruits  of  man's  social  nature.  I  might  add  that 
the  philosophy  of  society,  in  its  political,  economic,  and 
domestic  aspects,  is  the  discovery  of  those  who  are  not 


30  THE    RE-ADJUSTMENT    OF    FAITH. 

betrayed  into  the  natural  but  perilous  error — not  the 
error  of  our  age — of  setting  social  man  above  individual 
man — humanity  above  the  soul  While  man  contem 
plates  the  destiny  of  the  race,  the  progress  of  society,  as 
the  grand  concern,  instead  of  considering  the  destiny  of 
the  private  soul  as  the  fundamental  interest,  society  itself 
cannot  advance  wisely  or  swiftly.  Christianity  which 
cares  nothing  for  society,  but  loves  each  man  infinitely, 
is  the  real  source  of  the  triumphs  of  modern  civilization. 
In  a  still  greater  degree  does  the  enjoyment  and  use  of 
Christianity  depend  upon  its  being  carefully  and  con 
sciously  distinguished  from  what  is  natural  and  sponta 
neous  in  man's  own  religious  nature,  or  from  natural  re 
ligion.  That  it  is  practically  mixed  up  with  these  we 
have  seen.  And  many  persons  of  intelligence  suppose 
that  all  attempts  to  separate  between  natural  and  re 
vealed  religion,  natural  goodness  and  Christian  goodness, 
the  light  of  conscience  and  the  light  of  the  Gospel,  are  a 
waste  of  time  and  feeling.  But  as  a  mere  matter  of  fact, 
it  will  be  found,  that  other  things  being  equal,  Christianity 
is  positive  and  influential,  just  in  proportion  to  the  dis 
tinctness  which  it  acquires  in  the  mind  of  its  disciple  ; 
to  the  care  with  which  it  is  separated  and  distinguished 
from  other  good  things.  It  is  no  reason  for  thinking 
ill  of  natural  religion  that  it  is  not  revealed  religion,  nor 
of  morality  that  it  is  not  piety,  nor  of  reason  that  it  is 
not  faith,  nor  of  a  sound  spiritual  philosophy  that  it  is 
not  the  Gospel.  But  there  is  just  as  little  reason  for 
mixing  up  and  confounding  all  these  good  things.  I 
wish  to  have  a  distinct  and  separate  sense  of  obligation 
and  love  towards  all  my  friends,  and  I  do  not  disparage 
one  by  not  mistaking  him  for  the  other.  The  Catholic 


SPIRITUAL    DISCERNMENT.  31 

Church  succeeded  wonderfully  in  blending  life  and  re 
ligion  together,  faith  and  daily  usage,  pleasure  and 
worship,  philosophy  and  the  Gospel,  and  it  won  the 
whole  world  to  its  side  by  the  success  with  which  it 
confounded  differences  and  obliterated  distinctions. 
The  world  became  the  Church,  but  the  Church  became 
the  world.  Sabbathjs  and  other  days  were  all  on  a  level 
— equally  sacred  and  equally  secular — morality  and 
piety  were  charmingly  melted  together.  But  with 
what  result  ?  Piety  became  superstition,  virtue  a  for 
mality,  worship  a  spectacle,  and  faith  an  absurdity. 
The  return  to  any  positive  moral  power  lay  in  the  pain 
ful  process  by  which,  the  Keformation  untwined  this 
tightly-braided  cord  of  Catholicism,  and  distinguished 
among  things  different ;  and  all  the  triumphs  of  Protes 
tantism,  the  universal  improvement  of  private  and  pub 
lic  morality,  of  public  education,  respect  for  the  indi 
vidual,  have  grown  out  of  the  increasing  care  taken  to 
keep  the  Church  and  the  world  apart — religion  and 
other  interests  distinct  subjects  of  thought  and  atten 
tion.  The  confounding  of  all  days  as  alike  holy  and 
unholy,  all  rites  and  ceremonies  as  equally  binding,  all 
opinions  as  equally  true,  all  names  and  authorities- 
Moses,  Jesus,  Socrates,  Confucius,  Swedenborg — as 
alike  venerable,  though  many  think  it  a  very  superior 
style  of  philosophy,  and  indicative  of  a  very  high  tone 
of  character — experience,  I  think,  will  prove  to  be  a 
very  dangerous  amalgamation  of  truth  and  falsehood, 
of  things  real  and  things  fanciful.  And  so  men  will 
find  that  their  own  religious  improvement,  their  own 
Christian  life,  is  very  dependent  upon  the  distinctness 
of  their  religious  views,  the  exactness  of  their  historical 


32  THE    RE-ADJUSTMENT    OF    FAITH. 

knowledge  of  the  Gospel,  the  precision  of  their  acquaint 
ance  with  ecclesiastical  history,  the  definiteness  of  their 
ideas  about  natural  and  revealed  religion — in  short,  upon 
the  amount  of  time,  interest,  patience,  and  thought  they 
give  to  this  supreme  subject.  A  man  needs  not  merely 
to  have  his  religion  as  a  sentiment,  in  him  ;  he  must 
be  able  also  to  put  it  out  of  him,  as  a  theory,  that  he 
may  contemplate  it,  systematize  it,  study  it,  fit  it  to 
himself  and  himself  to  it.  To  leave  it  mixed  up  with 
every  thing  else  in  his  soul,  not  distinguishable  nor 
differenced,  is  like  having  any  thing  else  we  need  to 
know,  to  use,  and  to  improve,  in  the  same  confused  and 
unmethodized  condition,  whether  it  be  the  lawyer's  li 
brary,  or  the  physician's  medicine-chest,  or  the  mechan 
ic's  tool-box. 

And  finally,  God  ought  to  become  more  and  more 
a  separate,  distinguished,  and  solitary  Being,  in  the 
knowledge  and  reverence  of  the  human  soul.  God  is 
in  man,  God  is  in  nature,  God  is  in  Christ  ;  and  there 
we  look  for  Him  and  find  Him  ;  but  if  we  look  truly, 
we  find  Him  so  vastly  greater  than  man,  or  nature,  or 
Christ,  that  in  them  though  He  be,  He  is  far  more  out 
of  them,  and  in  Himself  alone.  The  vast  ocean  is  in 
the  bay,  is  in  the  tidal  river,  is  in  the  clouds,  big 
with  its  exhalations,  is  in  the  spray  that  dashes  in  our 
face  as  we  stand  upon  the  shore.  But  neither  bay, 
river,  cloud,  nor  spray,  is  the  ocean,  or  gives  the  least 
idea  of  its  power,  vastness,  depth,  and  majesty.  The 
huge  leviathan  that  plays  in  its  waters  is  a  minnow, 
the  vast  navy  that  rides  on  its  bosom  a  chip,  in 
the  immensity  of  its  circumambient  wastes.  So  do 
we  live  and  move  and  have  our  being  in  God,  the  un- 


SPIRITUAL    DISCERNMENT.  33 

explored,  boundless,  spiritual  element,  the  beginning 
and  end  of  our  existence,  without  the  right  to  imagine 
that  we  have  begun  to  know,  much  less  to  measure  and 
fathom  our  glorious  and  all-hallowed  Creator.  It  is  a 
weak  error  to  suppose  that  we  draw  any  nearer  to  God 
by  losing  our  awe  of  His  majesty,  by  becoming  familiar 
and  accustomed  to  his  face.  We  have  truly  lost  God 
and  gone  away  from  Him,  when  we  cease  to  tremble 
before  Him  ;  when  our  awe  and  dreadful  love  and  won 
der  have  decreased  or  given  up  their  edge.  The  child 
that  cowers  before  the  thunder  as  God's  voice,  has  a 
nearer  view  of  Him  than  the  man  that  uses  His  name 
as  a  familiar  household  word,  identical  with  nature — is 
a  thousand-fold  nearer  than  the  careless  being  who  uses 
that  solemn  term  to  give  emphasis  to  his  anger  or  his 
folly.  Profanity  is  hardly  more  shocking  than  the  fa 
miliarity  of  many  Christian  prayers,  which  approach 
the  Deity  as  if  Christ  had  let  down  his  dignity  to  the 
level  of  man's  pretensions.  Moreover,  there  is  a  real 
danger  that  the  paternal  character  of  God,  now  so  much 
dwelt  upon,  should  be  made  a  cover  or  shroud  of  that 
eternal  glory  and  awful  majesty  in  which  the  First 
Cause  forever  dwells.  God,  known  in  his  real  character, 
must  inspire  unbounded  veneration  and  awe.  The  bet 
ter  He  is  known  the  more  of  holy  and  delicious  fear  He 
must  excite.  The  soul  will  approach  Him  with  shud 
ders  of  joy  and  tremblings  of  adoration,  and  rejoice  that 
He  is  thus  ineffable  and  fearful.  Woe  to  the  heart 
that  has  ceased  to  fear  God  !  Christ  himself  was  as 
far, from  that  familiarity  as  the  most  conscience-smitten 
sinner  could  be,  and  every  man's  real  spiritual  weight 
and  moral  elevation  may  be  estimated  by  the  grandeur 
2* 


34  THE    RE-ADJUSTMENT    OF   FAITH. 

and  solemnity  of  his  feelings  towards  his  Creator.  "  He 
had  a  great  idea  of  God/'  it  was  said  of  one  of  the  most 
profound  and  sainted  among  religious  reformers  ;  and 
every  man  who  wishes  to  be  a  Christian,  or  a  deeply  re 
ligious  man,  should  see  to  it  that  God  becomes  every 
day  a  holier  word  on  his  lips,  a  greater  idea  in  his  mind, 
a  more  brooding  and  awe-inspiring  affection  in  his 
heart.  It  should  shock  him  more  and  more  to  hear 
that  sacred  name  profaned,  or  lightly  spoken,  or  con 
founded  with  Nature,  Humanity,  or  Christ.  The 
substitution  of  Christ  for  God  constitutes,  I  know, 
the  religion  of  millions.  But  it  is  only  the  latest  and 
least  offensive  remnant  of  idolatry  :  the  proof  how  little 
God's  vast  and  undefinable,  yet  separate  and  peculiar 
glory  and  majesty,  are  yet  understood.  Christ  was  a 
creature — a  glorious  and  holy  creature,  yet  a  creature — • 
and  therefore  as  incapable  of  claiming  God's  place  as 
He  is  now  shocked  at  the  worship  he  receives.  We 
may  still  hear  him  saying  of  his  idolaters,  what  he  said 
of  his  crucifiers  :  "  Father,  forgive  them,  they  know 
not  what  they  do  !  "  Let  us  worship  neither  Humani 
ty,  nor  Nature,  nor  goodness,  nor  Christ.  Let  us  wor 
ship  the  alone,  the  infinite,  the  eternal,  the  ineffablo 
One. 


SERMON  III. 

PARADOX— ITS  PLACE  IN  RELIGIOUS  STATEMENT  AND 
EXPERIENCE. 

"  He  that  is  not  with  me,  is  against  me." — MATTHEW  xii.  30. 
"  For  he  that  is  not  against  us,  is  on  our  part." — MAKK  ix.  40. 

THESE  are,  in  both  cases,  the  sayings  of  our  Sav 
iour,  and  they  seem  on  their  face  to  be  flatly  contra 
dictory  of  each  other.  They  appear  to  have  direct  ref 
erence  to  a  common  principle,  which  is  first  emphati 
cally  affirmed,  and  then  just  as  decisively  denied.  "  He 
that  is  not  my  friend,  is  my  enemy,"  is  the  first  asser 
tion  :  "  He  that  is  not  my  enemy  is  my  friend/'  is  the 
second.  Now,  in  an  inquiry  where  to  place,  in  respect 
to  the  divine  acceptance,  those  who  are  neither  the 
friends  nor  the  enemies  of  Christ — neither,  for  him  nor 
against  him — the  common  position  of  men,  perhaps — 
the  question,  according  to  ordinary  views  of  scriptuiaal 
interpretation,  would  be  decisively  settled  on  the  au 
thority  of  the  Saviour,  if  either  one  of  these  texts,  to 
the  exclusion  of  the  other,  had  been  found  in  the 
record  ;  and  it  would  be  settled  in  directly  contrary 
ways,  according  as  one  or  the  other  had  been  omitted. 
Certainly,  there  can  be  no  more  important  question,  for 


36  THE    RE-ADJUSTMENT    OF    FAITH. 

those  who  acknowledge  the  divine  authority  of  Christ, 
than  to  know  whom  he  considers  under  his  protection, 
and  on  his  side.  And  if  any  one  of  us  wrere  ahout  to 
appear  at  his  har,  and  should  he  compelled,  on  the  re 
view  of  our  lives  and  the  careful  inspection  of  our 
hearts,  to  say  to  ourselves,  "  Well,  if  I  have  not  fol 
lowed  Christ,  I  have  not  opposed  him  ;  if  I  was  not 
pious,  I  was  not  blasphemous  ;  though  I  did  no  good 
under  the  inspiration  of  his  precepts  and  example,  I 
was  careful  to  do  no  harm  ;  I  always  respected  religion, 
though  I  never  felt  its  power  ;  if  I  did  not  pray,  I  did 
not  swear  ;  if  I  did  not  love  my  neighhor  as  myself,  I 
did  not  hurt  him,  and  felt  no  malice  towards  him  ; 
though  I  did  not  love  God  with  all  my  heart,  I  did  not 
profane  his  name  or  doubt  his  existence  and  attributes  ; 
and  if  I  did  not  profess  Christ,  I  did  not  deny  him" — 
if,  I  say,  we  were  compelled  thus  to  soliloquize,  it  would 
be  a  very  vital  and  imminent  question  with  us,  how,  in 
view  of  this  history  and  internal  condition,  our  Judge 
would  count  us,  whether  among  the  sheep  or  the  goats. 
And  if  we  could  then  hear  ringing  forth  from  the  judg 
ment-seat,  in  clear  and  undisputed  tones  of  the  Sav 
iour,  "  He  that  is  not  against  us,  is  on  our  part,"  we 
should  feel  as  the  prisoner  feels,  whose  straining  ear 
catches  the  foreman's  "  Not  guilty  ;  "  while  that  other 
saying,  "  He  that  is  not  with  me  is  against  me,"  in  the 
mouth  of  our  Judge,  would  be  equivalent  to  the  verdict 
of  guilty,  without  recommendation  to  mercy. 

But  these  sayings  of  Jesus  are  both  in  the  record, 
and  they  either  neutralize  each  other,  or  else  suggest 
some  important  discriminations,  both  as  to  the  nature 
of  truth,  the  essence  of  religion,  and  the  modes  of  our 


PARADOX.  37 

Saviour's  speech.  The  text  is  only  one  among  many 
verbal  contradictions,  and  even  moral  paradoxes,  to  be 
found  in  our  Saviour's  mouth.  I  shall  ask  your  atten 
tion  to  three  points,  one  respecting  the  language,  an 
other  the  theoretical  doctrine,  and  the  last,  the  practical 
application  of  our  religion.  Our  text  is  a  case  of  para 
dox  ;  and  the  doctrine  of  paradox,  whether  in  lan 
guage,  thought,  or  character,  is  worthy  of  the  most 
careful  consideration. 

1.  And  our  first  point  respects  the  folly  and  danger  of 
pressing  our  Lord's  language,  on  any  occasion,  with  too 
literal  a  force.  If  he  could  say,  as  in  this  instance,  the 
very  reverse  on  one  occasion  of  what  he  said  on  another, 
the  impossibility  of  believing  that  he  could  contradict 
the  spirit  of  his  utterances,  compels  us  to  admit  the 
necessity  of  interpreting  him,  in  all  cases,  with  careful 
reference  to  the  circumstances.  There  is  not  the  least 
reason  to  suppose  that  the  company  of  disciples  who 
heard  our  Lord  give  utterance  to  the  two  conflicting 
sayings  brought  together  in  our  text,  felt  any  incom 
patibility  between  them  ;  because,  in  both  cases,  his 
words  were  qualified  and  limited  by  the  immediate 
circumstances.  Words,  we  are  sometimes  in  danger  of 
forgetting,  are  not  the  only  language.  Actions,  tones, 
circumstances,  speak  equally  loud  ;  and  the  same  words, 
uttered  on  two  different  occasions,  might  mean,  and  be 
felt  to  mean,  two  directly  opposite  things.  In  like 
manner,  opposite  words — words  grammatically  and  ety- 
mologically  interpreted  directly  contradictory  of  each 
other — may,  under  different  circumstances,  be  une 
quivocally  understood  as  having  an  identical  meaning. 
When  the  author  of  the  Proverbs  says,  in  one  sentence, 


38  THE    RE-ADJUSTMENT    OF    FAITH. 

"  Answer  not  a  fool  according  to  his  folly,  lest  thou  be 
like  unto  him/'  and  then  in  the  very  next  breath,  "  An 
swer  a  fool  according  to  his  folly,  lest  he  be  wise  in  his 
own  conceit/'  the  very  boldness  and  blimtness  of  the 
contradiction,  and  the  nature  of  the  reasons  given, 
teach  us  at  once  that  there  is  perfect  identity  in  the 
spirit  and  meaning  of  the  contradictory  directions,  and 
that  the  real  counsel  is,  in  both  cases,  to  answer  a  fool 
discreetly,  and  in  such  a  way  as  to  bring  down  his  con 
ceit,  without  lowering  our  own  dignity.  Indeed,  the 
bolder  verbal  contradictions  are,  the  less  liable  are  they 
to  be  mistaken.  And  perhaps  he,  who  is  most  firmly  and 
unequivocally  settled  in  his  spirit  and  principles,  is  the 
very  one  to  hazard  the  greatest  seeming  inconsistencies 
of  speech.  Of  all  beings  in  the  world,  Jesus  is  the 
least  able  to  bear  a  literal,  prosaic,  scholastic  interpre 
tation  ;  and  chiefly  because  no  being  before  ever  had 
so  much,  so  profound,  so  universal,  and  so  novel  truth 
to  convey  through  a  narrow  and  imperfect  vocabulary. 
Christ  invented  no  language.  He  had  to  employ  the 
one  in  popular  use,  and  one  whose  terms  had  all  been 
appropriated,  and  in  a  manner  perverted  by  the  im 
perfect  knowledge  and  ideas  of  those  who  had  used  it. 
Moreover,  what  he  said  was  addressed  to  the  intelli 
gence  of  his  contemporaries,  and  we  read  it  as  if  it 
were  directly  addressed  to  ours.  There  is  hardly  any 
one,  besides  Christ,  who  could  bear  this.  And  he  bears 
it,  not  because  his  words  had  any  conscious  reference 
to  future  times,  but  because,  speaking  of  universal 
truths,  and  in  the  spirit  of  God  addressing  the  inmost 
soul  of  man,  he  has  less  that  is  local,  peculiar,  and  tem 
porary  in  his  thoughts,  than  any  other  moral  teacher. 


PARADOX.  39 

But  while  this  universality  makes  him  intelligible,  as 
no  other  ancient  is,  even  to  the  latest  posterity,  as  no 
other  sage  is,  to  the  humblest  mind,  it  forbids  any  other 
than  a  generous,  spiritual,  and  sympathetic  interpreta 
tion  of  his  language.  Those,  therefore,  who  follow  him 
with  grammar  and  dictionary,  and  Jewish  antiquities  and 
patristic  lore,  into  the  record  of  the  New  Testament, 
and  expect  to  find  in  each  particular  text  a  mine  of 
exact  and  scientific  doctrine,  capable  of  being  stated  in 
one  age  for  all  ages,  and  to  become  the  foundation  of 
specific  doctrines  of  equal  authority  with  the  great 
general  truths  and  holy  spirit  of  his  teaching  and  life, 
are  not  half  as  likely  to  reach  the  presence  of  the  Sav 
iour  as  the  most  ignorant  and  unlettered  Christians,  who 
derive  their  ideas  of  Christianity  from  the  well-known 
facts,  the  uniform  precepts,  and  unmistakable  spirit  of 
our  Saviour's  life.  If  there  be  any  thing  unprofitable 
in  this  world  for  Christian  food,  it  is  the  chaff  of 
textual  criticism.  No  text  of  the  New  Testament,  by 
itself  alone,  can,  in  its  literal  meaning,  claim  to  be  au^ 
thoritative.  It  is  authoritative  only  when  and  because 
it  emphatically,  compactly,  or  more  luminously  conveys 
the  general  and  recognized  spirit  of  our  Lord's  whole 
character  and  instructions.  It  is  not  to  abate  reverence 
for  the  words  of  the  New  Testament,  but  to  exalt  rev 
erence  for  its  spirit,  that  I  dwell  on  this  point.  We 
must  honor  the  word  of  God,  which  is  Jesus  Christ, 
even  more  than  the  words  that  he  spoke,  whenever  there 
is  any  conflict  between  the  letter  and  the  spirit  of  our 
Lord's  instructions.  But  let  us  pass  to  another  con 
sideration. 

2.  Our  text  is  not  merely  a  verbal,  but  a  moral 


40  THE    RE-ADJUSTMENT    OF   FAITH. 

paradox,  and  the  apparent  contradiction  in  it  gives 
the  authority  of  Jesus'  own  name  and  practice  to  the 
use  and  value  of  paradox,  while  it  shows  the  feel 
ing  of  his  mind  to  be  precisely  like  ours,  in  respect  to 
the  two-sided  character  of  all  truths — a  principle  whose 
recognition  is  of  vast  importance  to  the  understanding 
either  of  Christianity  or  of  our  own  mental  and  moral 
experiences.  The  mind,  in  regard  to  most  important 
subjects  and  inward  states,  is  forever  swinging  between 
opposite  points,  and  it  seems  sometimes  almost  indif 
ferent  to  us  whether  we  affirm  or  deny  a  given  proposi 
tion  j  there  is  so  much  truth  in  the  denial,  and  so  much 
truth  in  the  affirmation.  Thus,  there  is  a  very  small 
difference  between  the  philosophy  that  asserts  the 
eternity  of  matter,  and  that  which  asserts  its  non- 
existence.  Very  severe  cold  has  the  effect,  and  pro 
duces  the  sensation,  of  excessive  heat.  Starting  from 
the  same  place,  and  going  in  precisely  opposite  direc 
tions,  two  men  would  finally  meet  on  the  other  side  of 
the  globe  ;  and  ultraisms  in  opinion  and  sentiment  are 
as  sure  to  meet  as  physical  extremes.  The  Roman  Catlf- 
olic  and  the  Unitarian  have  more  sympathy  than  any 
of  the  intermediate  sects  of  Christendom.  In  regard  to 
many  questions  and  many  people,  you  must  have  ob 
served,  it  is  a  matter  of  great  hesitation  with  us 
whether  we  shall  go  wholly  for  or  wholly  against  them  ; 
and  sometimes  it  is  a  matter  of  pure  accident,  to  which 
our  very  conscience  seems  to  drive  us.  The  extravagance 
of  .another  person  on  the  right  side  of  a  controversy, 
often  repels  the  man  who  had  previously  elected  that 
position  for  his  own,  to  the  very  opposite  ground — not 
from  any  caprice,  but  because  it  is  the  instinct  of  our 


PAKADOX.  41 

nature  to  conserve  the  balance  of  truth.  This  accounts 
for  our  frequent  experience  of  antagonism  in  the  ordi 
nary  intercourse  of  life.  The  strength  of  this  disposi 
tion  is  proportioned  to  the  independence  and  courage 
of  the  mind.  If  our  companion  state  a  truth  in  a 
strong  way,  although  his  might  be  the  very  side  we 
should  most  naturally  adopt,  we  are  at  once  impelled 
to  take  the  opposite  side,  in  order  to  complete  the  unity 
and  harmony  of  the  principle.  The  world  calls  it  the 
love  of  opposition,  but  it  is  rather  to  be  called  the  love 
of  wholeness.  Thus  the  moderate  conservative  will  find 
himself  a  reformer  in  the  presence  of  ultra-conserva 
tives,  and  the  reformer  a  conservative  in  the  presence  of 
ultra-reformers.  The  abolitionist  keeps  the  pseudo 
anti-slavery  man  from  adopting  his  own  ideas,  by  the 
necessity  the  mind  feels  to  restore  the  equilibrium  and 
maintain  the  proportions  of  truth  ;  while  the  secession 
ist  keeps  the  indifferent  citizen  from  upholding  slavery. 
There  are  always  two  great  parties  in  politics  and  re 
ligion,  and  each  has  part  of  the  truth  in  its  keeping, 
not  necessarily  just  half,  but  the  complement  of  the 
whole.  No  government  could  stand  long  without  an 
opposition  ;  and  those  who  suppose  what  is  called  party 
spirit,  or  even  sectarian  spirit,  to  be  wholly  wrong  and 
bad,  mistake  the  conditions  under  which  truth  is  main 
tained.  Truth  is  too  large  to  be  surrounded  by  any 
one  man  or  any  one  party.  It  is  viewed  from  opposite 
directions  by  different  intelligences  or  representative 
parties,  and  each  is  likely  to  mistake  its  own  prospect 
for  the  whole  landscape  ;  but  as  the  roundness  of  the 
globe  prevents  any  altitude  from  overlooking  its  whole 
circumfemice,  so  the  roundness  of  every  truth  prevents 


42  THE    RE-ADJUSTMENT    OF    FAITH. 

any  observer  from  taking  a  complete  survey  of  it,  at 
one  moment  and  from  one  point  of  view.  It  is  not 
merely  the  extent  of  truth,  but  its  shape,  which  pro 
duces  this  difficulty.  To  make  a  perfect  day,  there 
must  needs  be  morning  and  evening,  light  and  dark 
ness,  within  the  compass  of  twenty-four  hours  ;  and 
if  we  pursue  the  day  within  the  polar  circle,  where  the 
sun  does  not  set  for  six  weeks,  in  seeming  to  gain 
something,  we  really  lose  the  day  entirely,  for  it  is 
composed  of  the  rapid  and  bounded  contrast  of  day 
light  and  night-darkness.  So,  if  we  attempt  to  keep 
in  view,  at  one  time,  the  opposite  sides  of  any  truth, 
so  as  to  have  no  shadow  to  the  object  we  look  at,  in 
stead  of  feeling  and  enjoying  the  truth,  we  become 
critics  of  it,  which  is  the  way  to  destroy  its  real  power 
and  vitality.  Just  as  nothing  but  scientific  or  idle 
curiosity  drives  a  man  within  the  polar  circle  to  see  a 
day  without  contrast,  all  light  or  all  darkness,  so 
nothing  but  a  dissecting  and  destructive  metaphysics 
enables  a  man  to  hold  both  sides  of  a  truth  in  his  view 
at  the  same  time  ;  and  then  it  is  not  the  truth  he 
holds,  but  its  image,  just  as  we  really  never  see,  in  fact, 
the  whole  heavens  at  once,  however  good  an  idea  our 
wooden  orreries  may  give  us  of  their  shape. 

The  progress  of  the  world,  therefore,  has  always 
been  that  of  a  ship  beating  up  a  river  by  short  and 
constant  tacks,  between  the  opposite  shores.  We  are 
very  much  distressed  at  this  various  and  contrarient 
course.  We  could  desire 'to  have  truth  permanent,  un 
changing.  And  so  it  is  ;  it  is  only  our  view  of  it  which 
changes.  The  very  reverse  of  the  operation  takes 
place  in  regard  to  our  view  of  truth  of  all  khftls,  which 


PARADOX.  43 

occurs  in  the  passing  of  a  panorama,  where  we  are  fixed, 
and  the  picture  moves.  Truth  is  stable,  and  it  is  the 
spectator  that  passes  round  it.  It  is  equally  true  of 
the  race  and  the  individual.  The  whole  race  is  but  one 
man,  and  all  history  his  biography.  The  history  of  the 
universal  human  mind  is  essentially  the  history  of  every 
mind  in  it.  Now,  the  varieties  of  opinion  in  the  world 
on  all  subjects  are  but  the  different  reports  of  man, 
looking  from  many  different  positions  at  the  central 
object  of  all  intelligence.  Truth  is  like  the  water  on 
the  globe,  never  increased,  never  diminished — some  of  it 
in  the  sea,  some  in  the  clouds,  some  in  the  earth,  some 
in  the  rivers,  and  some  in  the  tissues  of  the  organic 
structures,  but  always  the  same  in  all  its  various  forms, 
always  making  its  circuit,  always  returning  to  the 
ocean.  See  it  as  ice,  vapor,  fluid — see  it  in  its  pro 
tean  forms,  and  it  appears  unlike  itself.  But  it  is 
always  true  to  its  own  laws,  unchangeable,  and  not  to 
be  annihilated  or  increased.  It  is  so  with  truth.  And 
probably  if,  at  any  given  time,  the  mental  tendencies 
and  faiths  of  the  whole  race,  from  all  quarters  of  the 
globe,  could  be  collected  and  compared,  it  would  be 
found  that,  though  the  separate  nations  were  in  error, 
the  race  held  firm  hold  of  the  truth  ;  that  the  conserva 
tism  of  one  country  was  balanced  by  the  radicalism  of 
another — the  superstition  here  by  the  skepticism  there 
— the  over- excitement  of  this  land,  by  the  apathy  of 
that — while  all  the  elements  of  essential  wisdom  al 
ways  remained,  partitioned  and  scattered  in  fragments, 
but  always  to  be  regathered  and  formed  into  a  whole. 
This  or  that  candle  may  go  out,  this  or  that  hearth 
grow  cold,  but  there  is  always  fire  in  the  world. 


44  THE    RE-ADJUSTMENT    OF    FAITH. 

When  it  is  winter  in  the  northern  hemisphere,  it  is 
summer  in  the  southern,  and  the  same  amount  of  light 
is  always  playing  upon  the  earth's  surface.  The  mind 
has  its  tides,  like  the  sea  ;  thought  its  agitations,  like 
the  ocean  ;  truth  its  dark  and  its  light  side,  its  outline 
and  its  shadow  ;  and  we  are  presumptuous  when  we 
doubt  that  variety  of  sentiment,  conflict  of  opinion,  and 
even  contrast  and  seeming  contradiction,  are  perfectly 
compatible  with  the  eternal  and  unchanging  nature  of 
truth  itself.  The  real  progress  of  the  world  consists 
more  in  the  interchange  of  thought  than  in  the  creation 
of  it,  and  the  advancement  of  the  human  mind  more 
in  the  participation  of  each,  in  the  thought  and  ex 
perience  of  all,  than  in  the  discovery  of  new  principles, 
or  the  publication  of  new  views.  Indeed,  there  is 
nothing  new  under  the  sun,  but  new  combinations.  It 
is  the  rapidity  with  which  we  get  about  the  earth  that 
constitutes  the  peculiarity  of  our  modern  civilization. 
Rapid  and  constant  locomotion,  or  the  ease  with  which 
we  pass  through  other  places  or  physical  space,  is  civ 
ilization  ;  and  so,  rapid  and  constant  change  of  spiritual 
place — or  the  ease  and  .rapidity  with  which  we  pass 
through  other  men's  minds,  or  mind  itself,  is  true  in 
tellectual  and  spiritual  culture.  And  it  is  so,  simply 
because  truth  is  round  and  surrounded  by  Humanity, 
and  the  intercourse  of  minds  is  the  circumnavigation  of 
truth.  The  traveller  in  other  countries  sees  the  world, 
and  is  freed  from  prejudices  by  his  observation  of  all 
sides  of  civilization.  In  like  manner,  the  student  sees 
truth,  because  he  is  a  traveller  in  other  men's  minds, 
and  is  freed  from  moral  and  spiritual  prejudices,  from 
intellectual  pride  and  complacency — from  a  sense  of 


PARADOX.  45 

popish  infallibility,  an  1  from  that  stupid  dogmatism, 
which  men  mistake  for  the  love  of  truth,  when  it  is 
only  the  sloth,  timidity,  or  short-sightedness  of  their 
own  natures. 

As  it  is  with  the  race,  so  is  it  with  the  individual. 
The  history  of  every  honest,  aspiring  and  courageous 
mind,  that  lives  not  a  parasitical  life,  but  in  the  strength 
of  its  own  root  and  stalk,  is  a  history  of  intellectual, 
moral  and  spiritual  vicissitudes.  Truth  is  as  jealous, 
capricious  and  shy  a  mistress  as  was  ever  wooed.  She 
eludes  her  lover  as  a  hunted  deer  her  pursuer.  Her 
votary  must  follow  her  in  all  the  circuits  and  involu 
tions  of  her  flight — now  doubling  on  her  track,  now 
making  the  north  star,  and  now  the  Southern  cross,  her 
beacon — now  on  the  earth,  now  in  water  or  wood, 
and  again  in  the  sky,  but  always  having  it  for  her 
purpose  to  lead  her  wooer  through  every  parallel  and 
point  of  latitude  and  longitude  in  her  domain,  that  he 
may  view  her  and  her  possessions  from  all  quarters  of 
the  moral  compass,  and  see  her  full  shape  and  whole 
fortune — and  so  be  the  more  in  love  with  his  holy, 
heavenly  bride,  his  destined  partner  for  eternity.  Be  not 
alarmed  at  the  inconsistencies  of  your  own  opinions — at 
the  violent  contrasts  in  your  own  mental  and  spiritual 
moods — at  the  necessary  action  and  reaction  of  your 
religious  experience — if  you  are  only  alive  and  truly 
devoted  to  the  pursuit  of  truth,  duty  and  God.  If 
these  varieties  and  changes  are  the  work  of  your  own 
mental  and  spiritual  activity,  and  not  of  mere  pas 
sive  acquiescence  in  the  forces  that  you  encounter  from 
without,  you  are  truly  blessed  alike  in  your  doubts  and 
fears,  your  faith  and  your  skepticism,  your  assent  and 


46  THE    RE-ADJUSTMENT    OF    FAITH. 

your  dissent,  your  orthodoxy  and  your  heresy,  your 
mood  of  quiet  and  your  mood  of  unrest.  Nay,  startle 
not  at  the  suddenness  and  violence  with  which  opposite 
convictions  crowd  each  other  out  of  place.  It  was  for 
the  safety  and  relief  of  your  brain,  and  your  spiritual 
sanity,  that  the  overstrained  cord  that  was  pulling  you 
in  one  direction,  however  legitimate,  gave  way,  and  al 
lowed  you  violently  to  fall  back  upon  the  opposite  side, 
with  a  painful  shock,  that  disinclines  you  for  a  time  to 
the  once  so  attractive  quarter. 

The  religious  man,  who  has  no  vacillations  in  his 
views,  who  is  not  sometimes  inclined  to  Calvinism,  some 
times  to  Rationalism,  sometimes  to  Catholicism,  some 
times  to  Quakerism,  has  an  imperfect  activity,  a  dull 
imagination,  and  a  timid  love  of  truth  ;  for  all  these 
faiths  have  embodied  great  and  interesting  spiritual 
facts,  which  the  free  and  earnest  explorer  will  encoun 
ter  in  his  own  experience,  and  find  more  vividly  por 
trayed  in  the  history  of  these  sects  than  in  himself.  It 
is  for  the  spiritual  integrity  of  every  individual  to  have 
sympathy  enough  with  all  the  religious  opinions  of  the 
world  to  understand  the  ground  'of  their  attraction. 
If  he  has  not,  it  does  not  discredit  them,  but  his  own 
experience.  The  more  there  are  of  carefully  understood 
forms  of  spiritual  faith  in  the  history  of  the  Church 
and  of  the  human  mind,  the  better.  And  when  great 
spiritual  instincts  embody  themselves  in  honest  and 
grand  institutions  and  creeds,  they  are  like  light-houses 
on  dangerous  rocks,  by  the  side  of  deep  channels,  at  the 
mouth  of  safe  harbors.  They  show  us  a  safety  and  a 
danger  lying  close  together,  and  enable  us  to  shun  the 
one  and  seize  the  other. 


PARADOX.  47 

Under  the  diversities  and  vacillations  of  truth  with 
reference  to  the  seeker,  there  will  be  an  ever-orowins: 

O  O 

fixedness  in  the  thing  itself ;  so  that  his  experience 
will  he  like  that  of  an  elm,  which  strikes  its  roots 
into  the  ground  the  deeper,  the  faster  it  multiplies 
its  branches,  and  the  further  it  extends  its  limbs  ; 
so  that  the  more  tremulous  and  waving  its  top,  and 
the  more  variable  and  fleckered  its  shade,  the  larger 
its  bole  and  the  more  unshakable  its  foundation. 
For  the  pursuit  of  truth  does  not  at  length  bring 
us  into  consistent  and  harmonious  views,  so  that  we 
finally  grasp  the  comprehended  sphere  in  our  hand. 
But  it  leads  us  to  the  glorious  conviction  that  the 
truth-loving  and  piously-aspiring  spirit  is  a  part  of 
truth,  in  harmony  with  God  and  God's  wisdom,  beyond 
the  reach  of  harm  from  the  unknown,  in  subjection  to 
truth,  not  with  the  mastery  of  it ;  fed  by  it  and  upheld 
by  it,  not  feeding  and  upholding  it ;  its  guest,  not  its 
host ;  its  child,  not  its  protector.  It  is  heavenly  wis 
dom,  coming  not  in  the  form  of  dogmas  and  creeds,  but 
of  a  spirit  and  temper,  that  finally  settles  and  tranquil 
lizes  the  seeker  of  truth.  His  horizon  does  not  close, 
his  voyage  is  not  over.  The  ocean  lies  at  his  feet. 
He  is  as  eager,  as  curious,  as  doubtful  about  the  forms 
of  truth,  as  ever.  But  the  spirit  of  truth  is  in  his 
heart.  The  comforter  has  settled  in  his  bosom  ;  and  as 
the  dove,  that  knoweth  not  whither  she  goeth,  takes 
wing  with  sure  but  blind  instinct  for  her  passage  to  her 
winter  home — no  feather  ruffled  and  no  anxiety  in  her 
untried  pinions — so  the  soul,  once  given  up  to  God  and 
God's  truth,  discharges  itself  of  all  anxiety  about  re 
sults,  and  follows  freely  and  safely  where  truth  calls  out 


48  THE    RE-ADJUSTMENT    OF    FAITH. 

of  the  dark.  In  simple  teachableness,  pure  candor,  holy 
aspiration,  ineffable  faith,  there  are  fixtures  and  certainties 
enough  for  her.  She  changes  her  sky,  but  not  her  mind. 
She  changes  her  view,  but  not  her  vision.  She  is  one 
with  God,  under  all  varieties  of  experience  and  changes 
of  opinion,  and  expects,  under  the  immortal  lease  of 
His  favor  and  His  truth,  to  pass  in  one  glorious  identity 
of  spirit  through  infinitely  varied  forms  of  truth  and  ex 
perience. 

3.  My  brethren,  there  is  another  and  more  immedi 
ately  practical  suggestion  of  our  conflicting  text,  on 
which  I  have  left  myself  little  time  to  dwell.  When  our 
Lord  said,  "  He  that  is  not  with  me  is  against  me,"  and 
then  "  He  that  is  not  against  us  is  on  our  part,"  he 
seems  to  have  set  up  two  finger-posts  upon  oppo 
site  sides  of  the  entrance- way  of  life.  The  narrow  way 
of  life  runs  right  through  the  ordinary  paths  of  men, 
like  a  railroad  cutting  across,  or  running  into  and  going 
parallel  with,  the  common  roads.  It  is  straight  and 
narrow  ;  they,  wide  and  crooked.  It  follows  only  the 
shortest  way  to  its  destination  ;  they,  the  sinuosities 
and  facilities  of  the  country.  But  all  are  tending,  per 
haps,  to  the  same  important  destination.  Religion  has 
no  interests  of  its  own — no  interests  separate  from  the 
great  and  real  interests  of  men — and,  therefore,  men 
find  it  convenient  to  use  its  track  every  now  asd  then. 
The  common  road  and  the  heavenly  road  occupy  the 
same  general  way.  The  interests  of  the  worldling  and 
the  saint  are  often,  perhaps,  for  the  most  part,  the 
same  ;  therefore,  it  is  very  often  impossible  to  say 
whether  those  who  are  in  the  narrow  way  are  there  for 
the  whole  passage,  or  only  for  that  part  of  the  way  that 


PAKADOX.  49 

falls  in  with  their  own  road — whether  they  are  there  as 
volunteers,  or  as  compulsory  travellers.  Jesus,  then, 
might  well  say  to  mankind,  as  they  now  were  in  and 
now  out  of  his  way,  that  they  were  both  friends  and 
enemies  ;  both  opposed  to  and  in  agreement  with  him. 
And  what  it  is  important  and  practical  to  say,  to 
those  who  are  not  avowed,  chosen,  thorough  followers  of 
Christ,  is  that  they  know  not  how  much  of  the  Saviour's 
road  they  are  using  all  the  time,  and  how  much  easier 
and  better  it  would  be  to  take  his  way  wholly  and  de 
liberately.  You  are  mistaken,  my  brethren,  in  the 
purposes  of  God  and  Christ  towards  you.  You  mistake 
the  position  and  nature  of  the  way  offered  you  in  the 
Gospel.  It  is  infinitely  more  within  the  reach  of  your 
ordinary  experiences,  infinitely  better  adapted  to  your 
common  wants  and  interests  and  habits,  than  you  sup 
pose.  You  are  often  in  it  when  you  do  not  know  it, 
and  it  is  the  easiest  and  pleasantest  part  of  your  jour 
ney.  It  is  on  account  of  this  inter-threading  of  the 
way  of  life  with  your  ordinary  way,  that  Christ  says  of 
those  who  do  not  deliberately  take  it,  that  they  are  in 
it,  and  that  they  are  out  of  it.  Oh  !  think  what  sorrow 
and  shame  it  will  be  to  us  to  find  that  we  have  been  all 
our  mortal  life  nearly  right,  and  yet  wholly  wrong — in 
the  very  footprints  of  our  Master  one  moment,  and  then 
off  into  the  track  of  Satan — mistaken  for  his  friends 
one  hour,  proving  his  enemies  the  next  !  Oh  !  it  is 
enough  to  make  the  flint  weep  blood  to  witness  the 
blindness  of  beings  with  a  religious  nature,  without  a 
religious  purpose — with  a  shrine  for  Christ  in  their  in 
most  souls,  and  no  Saviour  in  their  hearts — with  God 
beckoning  them,  and  they  not  seeing  the  divine  invita- 
3 


50  THE    RE-ADJUSTMENT    OF    FAITH. 

tion  !  Oh,  brethren,  remember  Christ  cannot  call  you 
his  friends — will  not  call  you  his  enemies — or  rather, 
docs  call  you  his  friends,  even  when  he  must  see  you  to 
be  his  enemies  !  Will  you  not  relieve  him,  who  died  to 
save  you,  from  this  suspense  ?  Oh !  give  the  Saviour 
of  your  soul  some  other  reason  for  calling  you  his  friend, 
than  that  you  are  not  his  enemy,  and  leave  him  no  rea 
son  for  thinking  you  his  enemy,  because  you  are  not 
with  him. 

MAKCH  9,  1851. 


SERMON  IV. 

THE  ABSOLUTE   IN  MORALS  AND  FAITH. 

"  And  it  came  to  pass,  when  Jesus  had  ended  these  sayings,  the  people 
were  astonished  at  his  doctrine.  For  he  taught  them  as  one  having 
authority,  and  not  as  the  Scribes." — MATTHEW  vii.  28,  29. 

THESE  words  conclude  the  account  and  report  the 
effect  of  our  Lord's  Sermon  on  the  Mount.  "  The 
people  were  astonished  at  his  doctrine."  Fortunately, 
we  possess  the  exact  means  of  knowing  what  it  was 
that  astonished  them,  and  what  it  is  which  the  Evan 
gelist  thus  describes  as  doctrine.  "Were  we  without 
the  transcript  of  the  sermon  itself,  we  might  naturally 
infer,  from  the  astonishment  it  created,  that  it  con 
tained  some  extraordinary  disclosures  touching  the 
mysteries  of  religion  ;  some  novel  facts,  or  some  undis- 
coverable  and  peculiar  account  of  the  terms  of  salva 
tion.  Considering  what  ordinarily  excites  the  enthu 
siasm  of  Christian  believers,  and  what  is  most  eloquently 
dwelt  upon  in  those  discourses  intended  to  ravish  the 
hearts,  or  move  the  consciences,  or  excite  the  marvel- 
loving  imagination  of  novices  in  religion,  we  should 
certainly  expect  to  find  in  this  astonishing  sermon  of 
the  Founder  of  our  faith,  some  systematic  statement 


52  THE      RE-ADJUSTMENT    OF    FAITH. 

of  the  evangelical  creed  of  Christendom,  some  gracious 
unfolding  of  the  Gospel  plan,  some  description  of  the 
perplexity  caused  in  heaven  by  the  conflicting  justice 
and  mercy  of  God,  and  of  the  extrication  from  that  des 
perate  extremity  by  the  interposition  of  the  Son  of 
God,  gloriously  taking  on  himself  the  sins  of  the  whole 
world.  Surely  that  central  dogma  of  the  Atonement, 
round  which  the  affections  of  ages  have  clustered — that 
doctrine  to  doubt  which  is.  evidence  of  the  most  hard 
ened  heart  and  the  most  hopeless  depravity — will  be 
found  to  have  a  prominent  place  in  this  discourse,  and 
be  the  principal  cause  of  the  astonishment  felt  by  those 
who,  for  the  first  time  among  created  beings,  received 
the  great  corner-stone  of  Gospel  truth.  And,  as  part 
and  parcel  of  this  sublime  doctrine,  doubtless  the  great 
teacher  will  most  unmistakably  declare  himself,  to  the 
amazement  of  his  hearers,  the  equal  of  Jehovah,  the 
partaker  of  the  Godhead,  the  second  person  of  the 
Trinity. 

What  ought  to  be  our  astonishment — surely  not 
less  than  that  of  those  who  heard  this  address,  though 
for  very  different  reasons — to  find  in  this  discourse,  the 
only  long  and  completely  reported  sermon  of  Jesus 
Christ,  no  reference  whatever  to  the  fundamental  doc 
trines  of  Christianity,  no  Trinity,  no  Atonement,  no 
natural  or  total  depravity,  no  scheme  or  plan  of  salva 
tion  whatever  ? 

But  surely  you  are  now  expecting  me  to  say,  since 
the  so-called  evangelical  scheme  of  Christianity  is  not 
found  there,  that  we  do  unquestionably  find  the  Unitarian 
scheme  of  theology  laid  down  !  Doubtless  we  shall  have 
a  distinct  account  of  the  special  commission  and  coming 


THE    ABSOLUTE    IN    MORALS    AND    FAITH.  53 

of  Jesus  Christ ;  a  particular  unfolding  of  the  doctrine  of 
Human  Nature  ;  a  special  revelation  of  the  Immortality 
of  the  Soul  ;  with  some  distinctions  touching  the  nature 
of  Christ  and  his  relations  to  God  and  to  man  ;  which 
will  constitute  a  credible,  simple,  and  compact  body  of 
divinity!  If  the  hearers  of  this  sermon  were  not  aston 
ished  at  the  disclosures  of  the  Trinitarian  scheme,  surely 
they  must  have  been  astonished  at  the  disclosures  of 
the  Unitarian  scheme,  and  we  shall  find  evidences  of  it 
in  the  discourse  itself  ! 

When,  however,  we  turn  to  the  sermon  and  examine 
it,  we  find  as  little  evidence  of  its  author's  having  our 
scheme  in  his  mind  as  the  Orthodox  scheme.  There  IB 
not  a  doctrine,  according  to  the  ordinary  acceptance  of 
that  word,  of  any  kind  whatsoever,  in  the  whole  sermon. 
The  entire  discourse  is  an  attempt  to  heighten  and  en 
force  the  well-known  obligations  of  piety  and  morality 
as  they  were  recognized  by  the  pure  and  good  under 
the  Jewish  law  ;  to  remove  whatever  technical  obstruc 
tions  or  limitations  the  essential  and  eternal  principles 
of  morality  there  suffered,  and  to  carry  out,  without 
reserve  or  equivocation,  the  spirit  of  the  old  command 
ments.  The  sermon  on  the  mount  has  no  other  object 
than  the  substitution  of  absolute  morality  in  the  place 
of  technical  morality.  It  aims  to  remove  the  partialities 
and  compromises  from  Jewish  law,  and  to  give  a  broad 
and  universal  effect  to  the  spirit  which  underlies  the 
Mosaic  dispensation.  There  is,  therefore,  strange  as  it 
may  be,  not  one  word  in  the  sermon  on  the  mount  on 
the  subject  of  the  Immortality  of  the  Soul;  nor  one 
word  upon  the  organization  of  the  Church  ;  not  one 
word  upon  the  obligation  of  the  Christian  rites,  nor  on 


54  THE   RE-ADJUSTMENT   OF   FAITH. 

any  other  of  the 'topics  which  one  might  naturally  ex 
pect  would  have  prominence  in  a  manifesto  of  such 
dignity  and  such  fundamental  authority.  When  we 
read,  therefore,  that  at  its  conclusion,  "  the  people  were 
astonished  at  his  doctrine,"  we  are  puzzled,  first,  at 
their  astonishment,  and  second,  that  the  ground  of 
their  astonishment  should  be  termed  doctrine.  For  we 
find  nothing  to  startle,  nothing  peculiar  and  novel  in 
the  way  of  opinion  or  dogma  ;  and  nothing  correspond 
ing  to  what  we  usually  call  doctrine. 

In  regard  to  the  term  doctrine,  it  must,  I  suppose, 
be  conceded  that  the  ordinary  monopolization  of  this 
phrase  by  theological  dogmas  is  wholly  unscriptural 
and  misguiding.  Doctrine  means  simply  teaching,  and 
its  general,  I  might  almost  say  exclusive,  use  in  the 
New  Testament  is  in  application  to  the  precepts  of 
Christian  morality.  We  have  seen  that  it  was  the 
doctrine  of  duty,  the  enforcement  of  a  more  careful, 
thorough,  and  hearty  performance  of  moral  obligations, 
which  constituted  the  real  teaching  of  the  sermon  on 
the  mount  ;  and  I  could  give  you  a  thousand  illustra 
tions  besides,  that  false  doctrines  in  the  New  Testa 
ment  language  almost  uniformly  refer  to  errors  of  prac 
tice,  not  to  errors  of  opinion.  Heresy  in  our  Saviour's 
time  was  loose  morality.  The  doctrine  of  devils  was 
the  doctrine  which  allowed  men  to  practice  lying,  steal 
ing,  drunkenness,  and  lust.  Sound  doctrine  was  the 
doctrine  which  enforced  the  greatest  integrity,  purity, 
disinterestedness,  and  mercy  ;  not  that  which  laid  down 
the  most  orthodox  creed.  Speculative  opinions  had  not 
then  risen  into  the  vast  and  overshadowing  importance 
which  has  since  been  allotted  to  them.  Metaphysical 


THE    ABSOLUTE    IN    MORALS    AND   FAITH.  55 

distinctions,  theories  of  salvation,  opinions  about  the 
modes  of  spiritual  existence,  the  nature  of  divine  per 
sons,  all  that  has  since  passed  under  the  name  of  the 
ology,  found  small  place  in  the  mind  or  the  instructions 
of  our  Saviour  and  his  apostles  ;  and  the  reason  why 
we  have  continued  to  dispute  about  them  so  long,  and 
have  been  able  to  defend  any  and  all  sides  of  opinion 
out  of  the  Scriptures,  is,  that  the  New  Testament 
having  nothing  directly  to  say  on  the  subject,  but 
being  occupied  with  entirely  different  matters,  can 
throw  only  an  uncertain,  oblique,  and  chequered  light 
upon  the  issues  we  insist  upon  forcing  before  its  bar. 
This  is  sufficient  to  account  for  the  eternal  disputes  in 
theology.  We  insist  upon  carrying  a  question  of  specu 
lative  science  before  a  judgment-seat  devoted  to  practi 
cal  morality,  and  are  very  much  astonished  that  the 
court  is  on  both  sides  of  every  question  we  raise,  having 
neither  jurisdiction  over  the  matter  in  dispute,  nor  in 
terest  in  its  settlement. 

The  sermon  on  the  mount  is  full  of  doctrine,  un 
derstanding  that  word  in  its  true  Scriptural  acceptance, 
i.  e.  of  teaching  on  moral  and  religious  duties,  but  of 
no  other  kind  of  doctrine. 

But  what  then  astonished  the  disciples  ?  Doubt 
less,  in  great  part,  the  thoroughness  and  strictness  of 
the  morality  ;  for  the  sermon  on  the  mount  is  a  declara 
tion  of  the  eternal,  unchangeable  morality  of  Heaven 
and  earth,  eternity  and  time.  There  was  enough  in  a 
teaching  which  laid  bare  the  hollowness  and  partiality 
of  the  ordinary,  technical  morality  into  which  Judaism 
had  sunk,  to  inspire  profound  astonishment  and  rever 
ence.  But  the  main  ground  of  astonishment  was  not 


56  THE    RE-ADJUSTMENT   OF    FAITH. 

so  much  the  energetic  tightening  of  the  cords  of  duty, 
as  the  entirely  new  basis  upon  which  our  Saviour's 
teaching  reposed,  "  for  he  taught  them,"  is  the  evangel 
ists'  artless  account  of  the  effect  of  Jesus's  discourse, 
"  as  one  having  authority,  and  not  as  the  Scribes." 

At  the  first  blush,  we  should  be  almost  tempted  to 
reverse  the  phraseology  of  Matthew,  and  say,  of  Jesus's 
teaching,  that  he  rested  it  not  upon  authority  like  the 
Scribes,  but  upon  self-evident  truth  ;  but  let  us  not  be 
too  hasty  in  our  rejection  of  Scriptural  language.  The 
peculiarity  of  the  teaching  of  the  Scribes  was  that  they 
quoted  chapter  and  verse  for  every  thing  they  com 
manded  or  enforced.  They  did  not  pretend  to  base 
any  instructions  in  morality  or  religion  upon  their  own 
knowledge  or  experience.  Like  other  lawyers,  they 
went  to  the  books  and  cited  the  authorities,  and  they, 
like  many  of  their  brethren  in  every  age,  could  split 
hairs,  and  make  exceptions,  and  limit  inferences,  and 
use  special  pleadings,  to  make  the  Scriptures — their 
law-library — teach  pretty  much  any  thing  they  chose. 
On  the  other  hand,  our  Saviour's  teaching  was  pecu- 
liarized  by  a  disregard  of  these  authorities.  His  ser 
mon  on  the  mount  is  a  severe  criticism  upon  the  le 
gality  of  the  Scribes  ;  he  pulls  their  special  pleadings 
in  pieces  ;  he  shows  how  the  spirit  of  the  law  had  been 
sacrificed  to  the  letter,  and  bases  his  own  instructions 
not  upon  old  documents,  however  sacred,  but  upon  the 
absolute,  irrepealable  character  and  claims  of  moral 
truth  and  duty.  The  difference  between  him  and  the 
Scribes  is,  that  while  the  Scribes  teach  by  an  authority 
outside  of  themselves,  to  the  total  disclaimer  of  any 
standard  in  their  own  hearts,  or  the  hearts  of  others, 


THE    ABSOLUTE    IN    MORALS    AND    FAITH.  57 

Jesus  teaches  by  an  authority  within  himself  and 
within  all  men — speaking  out  of  his  own  heart  and 
conscience,  to  all  other  hearts  and  consciences,  and 
thus  resting  his  doctrines  upon  the  immovable  basis  of 
impersonal,  universal,  unchanging  moral  truth. 

We  might  at  first,  considering  the  prevailing  no 
tions  of  the  Christian  world  upon  this  subject,  conclude 
that  the  authority  in  Jesus,  which  so  astonished  the 
ancient  disciples,  was  the  authority  of  his  commission 
as  a  divinely  appointed  messenger  from  God.  But 
whatever  authority  of  that  kind  he  possessed  or  claimed 
at  other  times,  he  had  produced  no  credentials  at  the 
time  when  his  authority  was  so  forcibly  and  fully  recog 
nized,  except  those  of  entire  moral  conviction  and  pro 
found  earnestness  and  directness  of  moral  appeal. 
There  is  not  a  word  of  claim,  in  the  sermon  on  the 
mount,  to '  any  external  authority  whatsoever.  The 
hearers  recognized  an  authority  which,  however  it  may 
have  been  felt  by  Jesus,  was  not  asserted  by  him  in 
any  formal  manner.  He  spoke  as  one  having  authority, 
not  as  one  claiming  it ;  as  one  having  that  authority 
in  himself,  not  in  his  office  ;  and  his  right  to  be  trusted 
and  obeyed  rested  on  a  basis  which  does  not  allow  it 
self  to  be  questioned,  namely,  the  moral  instincts  of 
humanity. 

My  brethren,  there  is  an  inherent  and  absolute  au 
thority  in  all  truth,  which  makes  it,  in  the  end,  uncon 
querable  and  victorious.  The  truth  is  mighty,  and 
will  prevail.  What  is  founded  on  error,  has  rottenness 
for  its  corner-stone  ;  and  although  it  may  temporarily 
be  upheld  by  foreign  aid,  yet,  deserted  by  its  support 
ers,  it  always  finally  tumbles  to  the  ground.  Man's 
3* 


58  THE    RE-ADJUSTMENT    OF    FAITH. 

nature  is  in  harmony  with  God's  nature,  in  whose 
image  it  is  made  ;  so  that  there  is  not  one  truth  in 
heaven  and  another  truth  on  earth ;  one  right  for  God 
and  another  right  for  man  ;  one  heauty  for  angels  and 
another  heauty  for  mortals  ;  but  the  true,  the  right, 
the  heautiful  are  universal  in  their  nature  and  absolute 
in  their  authority.  The  principle  of  gravitation  which 
governs  each  particle  of  dust  on  our  globe,  controls  the 
suns  and  stars  of  the  firmament,  and  exerts  just  as  de 
cisive  an  influence  in  the  remotest  fields  of  space,  as  it 
does  here  in  our  houses.  The  same  arithmetic  we  use 
in  our  little  domestic  calculations  is  applied  to  the  re 
lations  of  worlds,  and  our  geometry  is  the  same  which 
God  used  in.  meting  out  the  bounds  of  the  universe. 
Science  is  man's  knowledge  of  God's  ways  ;  and  God's 
ways  are  truth.  We  do  not  undertake  to  quarrel  with 
the  laws  of  nature.  Our  ignorance  oftentimes  puts  us 
in  opposition  to  them,  and  a  very  expensive  position 
we  find  it  to  be,  because  they  never  yield,  and  in  the 
end,  of  course,  we  must.  And  truth  is  none  the  less 
true  because  it  is  undiscovered.  Before  it  was  known 
that  water  would  rise  to  its  own  level,  you  can  imagine 
the  vast  and  unnecessary  expense  at  which  the  old 
aqueduct  builders  sprung  their  arches  over  the  long 
plains  and  the  deep  valleys,  to  maintain  the  level 
deemed  necessary  to  the  distribution  of  the  fluid.  The 
magnet  turned  to  the  pole  just  as  unfailingly  in  the 
long  ages  when  commerce  was  steering  her  uncertain 
path  by  the  stars,  as  it  has,  since  its  invaluable  property 
was  discovered.  Electricity  was  just  as  ready  to  run 
our  errands  a  thousand  years  ago  as  to-day,  and  steam 
to  drag  our  burdens  ages  before  as  ever  since  its  power 


THE    ABSOLUTE    IN   MORALS   AND    FAITH.  59 

was  understood.  There  is  no  change  in  the  laws  and 
properties  of  things.  Truth  is  unchangeable,  whether 
it  be  physical  or  metaphysical,  material  or  spiritual, 
scientific  or  moral.  The  authority  of  truth  is  thus  ab 
solute.  We  are  obliged,  in  the  progress  of  knowledge 
and  experience,  to  come  round  io  it.  All  progress  is 
the  triumph  of  truth  ;  all  improvement  the  concession 
of  experience  to  the  unchanging  fact.  The  wisest 
man  is  the  man  who  is  most  in  sympathy  with  nature  ; 
who  follows  most  closely  in  her  footsteps  ;  yields  most 
readily  to  her  intimations  ;  catches  quickest  her  whis 
pers  j  sets  up  least  his  own  will,  or  prejudices,  or  no 
tions,  against  her  instructions.  Therefore  it  is  that 
true  philosophy  is  such  an  humble  observer.  She  sits 
like  a  child  at  the  feet  of  nature,  and  closely  watches 
what  she  does,  and  only  after  the  most  patient  accumu 
lation  of  numerous  observations,  undertakes  to  report  a 
law.  Presumption,  theory  and  pride,  frame  their  own 
general  principles,  and  then  hunt  up  facts  to  support 
them,  and  are  necessarily  kept  in  real  ignorance  all 
their  days,  amid  a  great  show  of  knowledge.  True 
science  knows  that  man  invents  nothing,  but  merely 
finds  out  what  God  has  invented.  We  cannot  make 
things  true  by  any  amount  of  effort ;  we  can  merely 
discover  what  God  has  made  true  from  all  eternity. 
And  I  suppose  it  would  take  a  deal  of  argument  to 
persuade  a  sound  natural  philosopher  that  there  was 
any  thing  arbitrary  in  nature  ;  or  that  even  the  laws 
of  matter  were  not  founded  upon  absolute  and  super- 
sensual  necessities  ;  so  that  the  facts  of  nature,  or  the 
truths  of  nature,  are  very  much  like  the  truths  of 
mathematics. 


60  THE    RE-ADJUSTMENT    OF    FAITH. 

But  what  we  thus  readily  recognize  in  regard  to 
physical  or  scientific  truth,  we  are  somewhat  more  slow 
to  perceive  in  regard  to  moral  and  spiritual  truth. 
The  absolute,  unchangeable  authority  of  morality  is 
one  of  the  latest  observations  human  creatures  make. 
And  yet,  by  a  universal  instinct,  we  feel  the  native 
eminency  of  moral  truth  over  intellectual  or  scientific 
truth.  We  recognize  the  usefulness  of  intellectual 
truth  ;  but  all  know  that  moral  truth  rests  its  claim 
not  on  its  usefulness,  but  on  its  sanctity,  its  inherent 
obligatoriness.  God  is  a  moral  being,  a  being  in  whom 
justice,  rectitude,  goodness  reign  supreme.  He  has 
made  man  a  moral  being,  and  wound  his  nature  up 
with  the  same  moral  weights  that  move  his  own  divine 
life.  The  laws  of  duty,  then,  are  not  strange  imposi 
tions  to  the  human  soul.  If  you  go  into  the  most  bar 
barous  regions,  you  safely  take  it  for  granted  that  right 
and  wrong  are  well-known  distinctions  among  the  peo 
ple,  and  no  amount  of  disregard  of  right  or  practice  of 
wrong  changes  your  conviction  that  human  beings  are 
everywhere  moral  beings.  Men  have  very  different  de 
grees  of  vision  ;  and  some,  living  in  constant  darkness, 
lose  almost  or  quite  the  power  of  sight ;  but  it  is  never 
theless  true  that  man  is  to  be  described  as  a  creature 
with,  the  use  of  his  eyes,  and,  using  his  eyes,  he  always 
knows  the  difference  between  black  and  white,  straight 
and  crooked,  smooth  and  rough  ;  nor  is  there  any  dif 
ficulty  in  establishing  general  rules  or  principles  in 
respect  to  the  laws  of  vision.  It  is  just  so  in  regard  to 
right  and  wrong,  good  and  evil,  just  and  unjust. 
Under  all  the  superficial  diversities,  whether  of  tribes, 
ages,  climates,  civilizations,  there  are  discoverable  to  the 


THE    ABSOLUTE    IN    MORALS    AND    FAITH.  61 

candid  mind  a  few  general  principles  of  morality,  uni 
formly  recognized,  if  not  obeyed,  and  which  it  takes  no 
authority  outside  of  the  human  heart  to  bind  cogently 
upon  the  conscience  of  all  men.  The  will,  through  in 
dolence  and  neglect  of  discipline,  may  be  too  weak  to 
carry  out  the  edict  of  the  conscience,  but  the  conscience 
will  respond  with  almost  unvarying  consent  to  every 
appeal  made  from  the  ground  of  absolute  morality. 
We  must  not  mistake  the  weakness  of  human  charac 
ter  for  the  blindness  of  moral  vision.  People  know 
their  duty  when  they  do  not  do  it,  and  pay  the  homage 
of  their  hearts  to  virtue,  when  they  are  too  irresolute 
to  render  it  the  obedience  of  their  lives. 

Now,  it  is  upon  this  grand  eminence  of  absolute 
morality  that  Jesus  Christ  stands  in  the  sermon  on 
the  mount.  That  mountain  was  God's  holy  hill  of 
everlasting  moral  truth,  a  truth  corresponding  to  man's 
nature  because  the  original  mould  of  it.  And  when, 
from  this  ground  of  absolute  truth  Jesus  spoke  to  the 
disciples,  their  natures  answered  from  all  their  moral 
depths,  with  echoes  that  shook  and  astonished  their 
souls.  What  is  it,  my  brethren,  that  gives  sanctity 
and  power  to  all  moral  truths,  if  it  be  not  the  moral 
nature  ?  If  you  stand  in  the  midst  of  a  plain,  and 
blow  the  far-sounding  trumpet  with  the  lungs  of  a 
S  ten  tor,  you  ge,t  back  no  response  !  But  a  gentle 
whisper,  breathed  from  this  same  instrument  among 
the  hills,  brings  back  echoes  that  roll  and  thunder  upon 
the  ear  of  the  trumpeter,  until  his  own  voice  is  drowned 
in  their  peal.  The  moral  laws  of  God,  urged  upon 
beings  without  a  moral  nature,  can  produce  no  effect. 
But  what  prodigious  effects  may  we  not  expect  when 


62  THE    RE-ADJUSTMENT    OF   FAITH. 

moral  truth  meets  moral  "beings  ;  when  moral  obliga 
tions  come  home  to  the  moral  dehtor  ?  Thus,  when 
Christ  presents  his  claims,  the  claims  of  eternal  justice, 
mercy,  truth,  and  duty,  the  human  soul  sees  its  own 
signature  at  the  hottom  of  the  notes  he  presents  for  pay 
ment.  It  sees  and  feels  that  its  own  nature  endorses 
these  claims,  and  that  it  must  escape  from  itself,  and 
learn  to  hate  and  despise  what  it  is  compulsory  upon 
it  to  love  and  honor,  before  it  can  repudiate  the  obli 
gations  of  its  Saviour. 

And  if  moral  truth  has  its  high  authority  in  the 
very  nature  of  man,  so  that  he  who  utters  it  nobly  and 
faithfully  needs  no  credentials  but  the  truth  itself, 
which  is  a  cipher  to  which  all  men  hold  the  key,  so, 
again,  the  possession  of  the  truth  is  the  true  and  self- 
sealed  commission  to  declare  it,  investing  its  holder 
with  sacred  and  all-commanding  powers.  It  is  the 
jiature  of  all  truth  to  clothe  its  discoverer  with  a  cer 
tain  measure  of  confidence  ;  and  this  confidence  will 
be  proportioned  to  the  dignity  of  the  truth  he  sees 
committed  to  his  hands.  There  is  a  time  when  all 
great  intellectual  discoveries,  whether  the  law  of  grav 
itation,  or  the  circulation  of  the  blood,  or  the  efficacy 
of  vaccination,  or  the  power  of  steam,  or  the  true  theory 
of  government,  is  in  the  hands  of  a  minority,  perhaps  a 
minority  of  one  ;  but  it  is  impossible  for  this  minority 
to  feel  that  modesty  and  uncertainty  becoming  its  num 
bers,  and  the  vastness  of  the  majority  which  disputes  its 
pretensions.  For  great  discoveries  or  high  truths  bring 
such  a  flood  of  light  into  the  mind  of  their  possessors, 
that,  in  regard  to  them,  they  are  not  left  to  think  or 
suppose  ;  they  knoiv,  and  their  position  is  not  that  of 


THE    ABSOLUTE    IN    MORALS    AND    FAITH.  63 

their  opinion  against  the  opinions  of  other  meny  but  of 
their  knowledge  against  other  men's  ignorance.  And 
it  is  this  mighty  vantage-ground  of  positive  knowledge 
against  negative  prejudice  which  enables  them  so 
rapidly  to  conquer  the  world. 

But  this  is  peculiarly  true  of  moral  and  spiritual 
knowledge.  To  him  who  is  greatly  flooded  with  moral 
and  spiritual  wisdom,  his  attitude  towards  moral  truth 
is  not  that  of  an  inquirer,  a  'speculative  philosopher, 
but  that  of  an  adoring  disciple  and  sworn  champion. 
The  conscience,  the  heart,  know  the  things  whereof 
they  affirm.  The  truths  with  which  they  are  con 
versant  are  objects  not  of  probable  reality,  of  prepon 
derating  evidence,  but  of  positive  knowledge.  The 
soul  sees  God,  feels  immortality,  knows  with  absolute 
certainty  the  obligations  of  duty,  the  policy  of  virtue, 
the  blessedness  of  justice  and  mercy  and  humanity,  and 
in  submitting  to  them  yields  to  no  calculation  of 
chances  or  overplus  of  motive,  but  to  an  entire,  hearty, 
and  all-gracious  moral  necessity.  Thus,  if  you  study 
the  basis  of  our  Saviour's  teaching,  and  examine  the 
solid  ground  of  his  calm,  perfect,  serene,  and  never- 
yielding  authority,  you  will  find  it  in  the  self-evidenc 
ing  nature  and  imperative  character  of  his  moral  and 
spiritual  knowledge.  I  believe,  therefore  have  I 
spoken.  He  knew  the  things  whereof  He  affirmed. 
The  words  that  I  speak  are  not  mine,  but  my  Father's. 
Christ  never  explains  the  grounds  of  his  authority,  ex 
cept  by  asserting  it,  and  conquers  doubt  and  objection 
only  by  awakening  in  other  hearts  that  moral  nature, 
in  the  perfect  activity  of  which  his  own  deep,  absolute, 
and  victorious  convictions  rested. 


64  THE   RE-ADJUSTMENT    OF    FAITH. 

You  must  all  have  observed  the  oracular  character 
of  the  sermon  on  the  mount,  and  of  the  Scriptures  in 
general.  Truth,  especially  moral  truth,  is,  of  its  very 
essence,  oracular.  It  issues  from  its  shrine,  to  find  the 
argument  that  upholds  it  in  the  hearts  of  its  hearers. 
Would  you  know,  my  brethren,  the  truth  of  Christian 
ity  ;  would  you  receive  and  enjoy  the  blessed  life  and 
light  it  offers  its  disciples,  do  not  waste  your  time  in 
side-issues,  or  strifes  about  evidences  and  critical  ques 
tions,  but  admit  the  words  and  the  character  of  Jesus 
directly  to  your  hearts.  Christ  puts  himself  on  a  new 
trial  before  every  human  soul.  Behold  the  man  !  If 
he  speaks  what  no  man  could  speak  unless  God  were 
with  him  ;  if  he  reaches  depths  in  the  human  heart 
that  are  elsewhere  unfathomed  ;  if  he  awakens  and 
gives  distinctness  to  dispositions  and  affections  of  a 
divine  beauty  and  blessedness  ;  if  he  reveals  the  wants 
and  capacities  of  the  soul  to  itself ;  if  he  communicates 
vigor  and  sanctity  to  the  conscience,  unfelt  before  ;  if 
in  his  light,  life  wears  another  and  more  glorious  and 
consistent  meaning ;  if  he  purges  the  moral  and  spirit 
ual  eye  until  it  sees  things  that  are  invisible  ;  if  he 
rouses  the  spiritual  nature  until  the  great  truths  of 
God's  paternity,  man's  brotherhood,  the  soul's  immor 
tality,  become  self-evident,  all-  commanding,  and,  final 
ly,  native  and  visible  truths  to  the  sours  celestial  vision 
— then  I  say,  that  to  such  a  glorious  and  divine  mas 
ter,  thus  offering  himself  at  the  judgment-seat  of  hu 
manity,  we  cannot  say,  Away  with  him  !  away  with 
him  !  Crucify  him  !  crucify  him  !  Nay,  rather  we 
shall  say,  Let  me  die  with  him,  for  he  is  the  lover  and 
Saviour  of  my  soul. 


THE    ABSOLUTE    IN    MORALS    AND    FAITH.  65 

Such  an  authority  we  can  all  understand  and  honor. 
It  is  upon  this  authority,  whatever  may  be  the  theories 
of  theologians,  that  Christianity  is  sustained  this  day. 
The  world,  while  it  is  disputing  upon  the  subject, 
knows,  in  .its  deepest  heart,  the  truth  of  the  gospel. 
Its  truth  has  been  tested  and  tried.  Jesus  outlives 
and  commands  all  other  teachers,  philosophers,  and 
sages,  by  the  twofold  superiority  of  his  moral  nearness 
to  God  and  moral  nearness  to  man.  He  knew  what 
was  in  man,  because  man  is  at  his  deepest  heart  a 
moral  being  ;  he  knew  what  was  in  God,  because  God 
in  his  most  sacred  essence  is  a  moral  being ;  and  he 
knew  both  these,  because  supereminently  he  was  the 
blossom  of  conscience,  the  consummate  flower  of  abso 
lute  morality.  This  glorious,  eternal  eminence  is  his 
throne  ;  from  it  he  rules  the  moral  world,  as  the  moon 
sways  the  tides.  From  this  high  mountain  he  pro 
nounced  his  sermon,  and  no  wonder  that  it  came  to 
pass,  "  when  Jesus  had  ended  these  sayings,  the  people 
were  astonished  at  his  doctrine.  For  he  taught  as  one 
having  authority,  and  not  as  the  Scribes." 

MARCH  26.  1854. 


SERMON  V. 

CHRISTIANITY   AN  HISTORICAL  RELIGION. 
(PREACHED  ON  EASTER-SUNDAY.) 

"  This  Jesus  hath  God  raised  up,  whereof  we  all  are  witnesses.  Therefore, 
being  by  the  right  hand  of  God  exalted,  and  having  received  of  the 
Father  the  promise  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  ho  hath  shed  forth  this,  which 
ye  now  see  and  hear." — ACTS  ii.  32,  33. 

THIS  day  commemorates  the  resurrection  of  our  Sav 
iour  from  the  dead.  Yesterday  he  lay  in  stark  and 
hope-destroying  coldness — a  pierced,  bloodless  corpse 
within  the  tomb.  To-day  he  rises  in  perfect  life,  in 
moving,  speaking,  substantial  existence,  to  astonish  and 
delight,  and  to  recover,  his  scattered  and  broken-hearted 
disciples  ;  to  retrieve  the  defeat  of  his  crucifixion,  and 
accomplish  a  perfect  triumph  over  his  enemies.  Let  us 
thank  the  old  Mother  Church  and  her  English  daughter 
for  keeping  this  and  the  other  great  historic  facts  of  our 
religion  steadily  before  the  world,  by  the  festivals  and 
holy-days  of  the  Christian  year.  The  disuse  and  even 
censure  of  these  natural  and  affectionate  customs,  by 
Protestantism,  which  is  so  needlessly  afraid  of  forms 
and  seasons,  accounts  to  a  great  degree  for  the  danger 
ous  dissociation  into  which  the  principles  and  sentiments 


CHRISTIANITY AN    HISTORICAL    RELIGION.          67 

of  our  religion  and  its  actual  facts  and  persons  have 
fallen.  Since  the  world  has  seen  into  the  spiritual  im 
port  of  Christianity,  it  has  wilfully  disparaged  its  ex 
ternal  history,  and  fancies  itself  capahle  of  receiving 
and  maintaining  its  precepts  and  spirit,  without  any 
aid  from  its  facts  and  the  positive  form  of  its  bestow- 
ment.  Thus,  society,  to  a  large  extent,  has  "broken  ut 
terly  loose  from  that  beautiful  framework  of  religious 
events  and  seasons,  called  the  Christian  year,  which  for 
so  many  centuries  formed  the  calendar  of  ordinary  life  ; 
and  I  very  much  fear  that  the  same  spirit  which  has 
discarded  holy-days  and  seasons  is  rapidly  discarding 
holy  books  and  means  of  grace  ;  abandoning  the  habit 
of  familiarity  with  the  Scriptures  ;  of  secret  prayer  ;  of 
studious  self-discipline  and  self-searching  in  the  light 
of  Christ's  example. 

It  was,  perhaps,  necessary  to  make  a  protest  against 
ecclesiastical  control,  and  to  rescue  ordinary  and  secu 
lar  life  from  the  regulation  of  priests  and  popes  ;  neces 
sary  to  take  a  stand  against  a  superstitious  and  barren 
veneration  for  forms  out  of  which  the  spirit  had  ebbed  ; 
but  now  that  we  are  emancipated  from  Church  tyranny 
and  the  bigotry  of  externals  in  religion,  I  see  no  reason 
why  we  should  not  voluntarily  and  from  our  own  sense 
of  need,  and  not  at  the  bidding  of  priests  or  of  supersti 
tions,  resume  all  we  can  of  the  usages  and  customs,  the 
times  and  seasons,  founded  in  the  actual  history  of  our 
religion.  For  either  our  religion  had  a  history  or  it  did 
not  have  ;  either  we  have  the  record  of  that  history  or 
we  have  not.  If  our  faith  be  a  fable,  a  beautiful  but 
baseless  tradition,  in  heaven's  name  let  us  say  so.  If 
our  Bible  is  an  unhistorical;  undependable  book,  come 


68  THE    RE-ADJUSTMENT    OF    FAITH. 

to  us  from  none  know  where,  and  sustained  in  its  pres 
ent  position  of  pseudo  veneration,  only  by  the  toleration 
which  scholars  pay  to  the  ignorance  and  superstition  of 
the  people,  let  us  know  this,  too,  and  say  it.  If,  on 
the  contrary,  Christianity  be  a  part  of  credible  and  uni 
versal  history,  to  whose  investigation  honest,  great,  and 
courageous  men  have  given  patient,  learned,  and  pro 
found  attention,  and  with  results  essentially  satisfactory 
to  their  faith  ;  if  the  New  Testament  is  an  historic 
document  in  all  its  main  facts  and  statements,  which 
the  most  searching  scepticism  has  not  yet  shaken  from 
its  essential  credibility,  and  which  every  day  only  more 
confirms  in  its  place  of  authority,  then  should  we  not 
pronounce  unacquaintance  with  its  pages,  disregard  of 
its  facts,  carelessness  or  indifference  concerning  its  his 
tory,  a  great  folly  and  misfortune,  and  not  compati 
ble  with  the  moral  and  spiritual  prosperity  of  any  soul  ? 
And  yet,  under  the  general  emancipation  of  the  mind 
of  this  country  and  the  world  from  authority,  aided  by 
the  spirit  of  self-reliance  which  democratic  institutions 
engender,  and  by  a  popular  literature  which  has  made 
standard  works  and  solid  reading  very  much  neglected  ; 
still  further  assisted  by  the  tendency  to  scientific  and 
mathematical  studies,  which  the  subjugation  of  the  soil, 
the  mining  and  manufacturing,  the  road-making  and 
boundary-drawing  necessities  of  the  age  have  promoted, 
to  the  neglect  of  ethical,  historic,  and  spiritual  explo 
rations,  we  have  a  wide- spread  and  deep-rooted  skepti 
cism,  indifference,  and  neglect,  united  with  a  profound 
and  measureless  ignorance  of  the  subject  itself,  touching 
the  whole  supernatural  and  historical  character  of 
Christianity.  That  part  of  the  Gospel  which  accords 


CHRISTIANITY — AN    HISTORICAL    RELIGION.          69 

with  the  doctrines  of  natural  religion  and  universal  mo 
rality  we  gladly  and  commonly  accept ;  but  the  posi 
tive  religion  of  the  miracle-working,  crucified,  risen, 
ascended  Son  of  God,  with  all  the  tender  and  affecting 
personalities  of  that  peculiar,  special,  historic  faith, 
we,  as  a  generation  and  a  race,  as  Americans  and  as 
citizens  of  the  nineteenth  century,  have  a  disposition  to 
reject,  or  what  is  worse,  to  treat  with  indifference  or 
neglect. 

Day  before  yesterday,  the  citizens  of  the  village 
where  my  kindred  dwell,  were  laying  in  the  tomb  a 
venerable  man  of  over  eighty  years,  of  spotless  life  and 
character,  a  universal  benefactor,  and  an  honored  and  be 
loved  friend — the  first  and  most  esteemed  of  their  peo 
ple.  And  I  will  venture  to  say,  that  not  one  person  in 
the  hundreds  composing  that  intelligent  New  England 
community,  gathered  at  the  grave's  mouth,  knew  that 
it  was  the  anniversary  of  our  Lord's  death  and  burial, 
or  would  have  attached,  if  they  had  been  told  it  on  the 
spot,  any  special  interest  to  the  tender  and  comforting 
coincidence.  They  are  not  knowing  or  thinking  to-day 
that  this  is  the  morning  of  the  Kesurrection,  and  find 
ing  consolation  and  assurance  in  the  glorious  fact  that 
it  is  not  possible  that  any  of  his  disciples,  any  more 
than  himself,  should  be  holden  by  the  pains  of  death. 

Is  this  well  ?  Does  a  faith  stripped  of  historic 
reality,  disunited  from  its  original  facts  and  persons, 
promise  to  live  and  work  in  the  human  heart  and  life  ? 
Is  it  not  asking  too  much  of  human  nature  to  cherish 
in  pure  spirituality  what  God  chose  to  communicate  in 
a  positive  form  ?  Can  we  afford  to  lose  what  is  so  fit 
ted  to  win  and  impress  the  heart  of  childhood  ;  to  shape 


70  THE    RE-ADJUSTMENT    OF    FAITH. 

and  attach  the  affections  of  youth ;  to  captivate  the 
imagination  of  the  poetic  and  quicken  the  stolidity  of 
the  calculating,  as  the  embodiment  of  religions  ideas, 
truths,  and  doctrines,  in  an  historic,  personal,  and  ritual 
form  ?  I  seriously  think,  the  loss  of  the  church  year, 
of  the  festivals  and  fasts  of  the  Church,  Christmas  and 
Easter,  Good  Friday  and  Lent,  a  great  detriment  to 
practical  religion — a  loss  to  the  sentiment  of  reverence, 
and  to  the  public  sense  of  the  historic  reality  of  Chris- 
'tianity,  which  is  already,  in  conjunction  with  other 
causes,  producing  very  alarming  consequences  in  this 
country.  You  may  not  be  aware  that  there  are  not 
half  a  dozen  Protestant  churches  in  the  country,  out 
of  the  Catholic,  and  Episcopal,  and  Lutheran  commu 
nions,  in  which  the  great  seasons  of  historic  importance 
in  the  Gospel  find  any  regular  notice  or  commemoration, 
and  that,  imperfect  as  our  own  attention  to  these  sea 
sons  is,  it  vastly  exceeds  what  is  common,  and  is  in 
deed  very  exceptional.  What,  then,  may  we  suppose 
to  be  the  state  of  positive,  historic  faith,  in  the  country 
at  large  ?  Is  it  not  easy  to  be  accounted  for,  why,  in 
a  sense  of  gasping  weakness,  a  thirst  for  sensible  images 
and  external  aids,  the  love  of  something  positive  and 
symbolic,  shapely  and  protecting,  so  many  worthy  and 
tender  souls,  as  well  as  so  many  strong  and  earnest 
ones,  have  gone  from  the  communion  of  Protestantism 
into  the  Catholic  Church,  and  from  all  other  forms  of 
Protestantism  into  the  Episcopal  Church  ?  I  frankly 
say,  that  notwithstanding  all  the  doctrinal  defects,  and 
the  notorious  pulpit  dulness  of  the  English  Church,  it 
seems  to  me  the  most  respectable  form  of  public  religion 
now  on  the  globe  ;  the  best  worth  taking  as  a  modul ; 


CHRISTIANITY — AN   HISTORICAL   RELIGION.          71 

better  adapted  to  human  nature  and  human  wants,  and 
with  a  better  apparatus  for  self-perpetuation  and  ex 
tensive  popular  influence  than  any  other  of  the  existing 
systems.  And  it  is  for  the  reason  that  it  best  succeeds 
in  blending  the  great  facts  and  events  of  Christianity 
with  the  regular  life  of  the  people,  keeping  their  religion 
always  before  them,  drilling  it  into  their  daily  habits 
and  affections,  and  giving  them  the  support  of  numbers, 
exactly  agreeing  with  them  in  opinion,  usage,  and 
season. 

At  how  few  palpable  points,  on  the  contrary,  except 
by  purely  and  expressly  personal  application,  and  through 
a  sanctified  will,  does  our  religion  touch  our  daily  hab 
its  and  ordinary  career  ?  It  gives  us  no  book  of  prayer 
which  is  consecrated  by  universal  use,  and  can  be  car 
ried  home,  like  a  private  chaplain,  to  become  the  au 
thority  and  helper  in  domestic  worship.  It  has  no  ex 
press  teachings  to  be  communicated  at  a  well-understood 
season  to  all  children.  It  has  no  rites  of  universally- 
conceded  sanctity  and  importance.  Do  we  baptize  our 
children  ?  It  is  a  matter  of  private  caprice  ;  some 
will,  others  will  not.  Do  we  take  the  communion  ? 
It  is  a  peculiarity  which  a  devouter  or  more  courageous 
few  venture  upon,  but  not  a  general  dignified  custom, 
toward  which  all  are  pressing.  We  have  no  season  of 
confirmation,  when  youth,  awakening  to  the  sober  re 
sponsibilities  of  life,  are  girded  with  strength  by  the 
special  interposition  of  the  Church.  Our  worship,  too 
— how  bald,  how  at  the  mercy  of  the  taste  and  talents 
of  the  accidental  occupant  of  the  pulpit  !  how  difficult 
to  join  in,  when  we  do  not  even  know  what  it  is  going 
to  be  !  And  with  all  the  diversity  of  doctrine,  usage, 


72  THE    RE-ADJUSTMENT    OF    FAITH. 

opinion — with  all  the  slackness  of  authority — how  can 
we  expect  to  throw  around  the  minds  and  hearts  of  our 
people  the  "blessed  restraints,  and  hopes,  and  fears,  the 
supports  and  consolations  of  a  positive,  revealed,  un 
changing  religion  ?  God  knows,  we  are  not  answerable 
for  this  unhoused,  unnatural,  and  disembodied  faith.  It 
has  come  of  a  deep  and  grand  necessity  of  the  human 
mind,  which  felt  instinctively,  that  at  whatever  cost;  it 
must  have  freedom  ;  that  religion  itself  must  stand 
aside,  if  human  nature  could  not  take  a  long  breath  in 
its  presence.  But  we  have  now  got  freedom,  abundant, 
generous,  thorough  freedom,  so  far  as  political  or  re 
ligious  bonds  are  concerned,  and  now  we  want  religion, 
faith,  reverence,  humility,  teachableness,  worship — want 
it  immensely,  immediately,  and  in  great  measures. 

To  get  it,  I  am  persuaded  that  we  must  turn  to 
an  historical  faith  in  a  revealed  and  supernatural  re 
ligion.  The  world  never  did,  and  never  will  be  able  to 
live  on  natural  religion — not  that  natural  religion  is 
not  the  very  object  of  revealed  religion,  but  religion 
and  a  religion  are  two  different  things.  That  the  peo 
ple  may  have  religion,  they  must  have  a  religion  ;  just 
as  that  they  may  have  government,  they  must  have  a 
government.  And  if  we  must  have  a  religion,  must  it 
not  be  an  authoritative,  divine  religion,  not  one  made 
and  shaped  and  set  up  by  men  like  ourselves,  but  re 
vealed  and  authorized  by  God  himself  ?  Such  a  re 
ligion  we  have  in  the  gospel  of  Christ — an  historical, 
precise,  actual  revelation.  It  is  confessedly  not  a  wor 
ship,  as  Judaism  was,  in  which  the  sacred  rites  are 
literally  and  exactly  prescribed,  but  it  affords  the  ma 
terials  and  guides  for  a  worship,  in  its  positive  facts 


CHRISTIANITY— AN   HISTORICAL    RELIGION.          "73 

and  injunctions,  in  its  ministry,  its  simple  rites,  its 
weekly  worship  ;  and,  above  all,  in  its  extraordinary 
and  affecting  blending  of  all  its  truth,  doctrines,  and 
precepts  with  the  person  of  Christ.  This  is  the  won 
derful,  providential  peculiarity  of  our  religion — well 
called  Christianity,  not  merely  because  revealed  by 
Christ,  but  because  actually  communicated  by  the  facts 
and  special  developments  of  Christ's  personal  history 
and  life.  No  man  need  fancy  he  can  make  a  satisfac 
tory  summary  of  Christianity,  or  describe  our  religion, 
by  stating  the  principles  of  the  gospel ;  it  were  as  easy 
to  give  an  idea  of  a  diamond,  by  announcing  its  min 
eral  composition  to  be  of  pure  carbon,  and  showing  a 
bit  of  charcoal  as  a  sample.  Christianity  is  Christ 
born  of  Mary,  Christ  working  miracles  of  love  and 
mercy  in  Galilee,  Christ  dying  on  the  cross,  Christ 
rising  from  the  tomb,  Christ  ascending  into  the  open 
heavens.  Mix  with  these  facts  the  great  truths  of 
natural  religion  and  eternal  morality,  and  you  have  the 
gospel ;  but  if  you  take  the  great  truths  of  nature  and 
the  soul  away  from  this  connection,  and  think  you  carry 
the  substance  of  the  religion  with  you,  you  might  as 
well  take  home  the  multiplication-table  as  the  only 
absolute  part  of  a  difficult  problem  in  mathematics,  or 
an  architect's  plans,  and  expect  to  eat  and  drink  and 
sleep  in  the  paper  house  so  skilfully  and  completely 
drawn  in  your  portfolio. 

My  brethren,  if  you  want  to  become  practically  re 
ligious,  and  to  receive  the  substantial  supports  of 
religion,  you  must  become  Christians  in  the  sense  I 
have  thus  given — Christians,  in  that  you  are  students, 
lovers,  disciples  of  the  historic,  actual  New  Testament 
4 


74  THE   RE-ADJUSTMENT    OF   FAITH. 

Christ.  You  must  know  and  love  the  records  of  his 
life  ;  you  must  associate  your  principles  with  his  person 
and  example  ;  you  must  run  your  faith  into  the  form 
of  his  words,  and  fashion  your  calendar  by  the  dates  of 
his  career.  In  this  way  alone  can  you  realize  any 
thing  like  the  aid  and  support  of  a  positive  faith  ;  an 
external,  palpable  religion,  a  helpful  and  supporting 
worship.  Because  the  imperfect  and  outworn  creeds 
of  Romanism  have  so  successfully  availed  themselves 
of  this  law  of  the  mind,  do  not  imagine  that  the  truth 
does  not  need  to  learn  wisdom  from  the  long  and  won 
derful  experience  of  the  Mother  Church.  If  any  man 
believe  in  freedom,  in  progress,  in  essence,  as  opposed 
to  dogmatism,  fixity,  and  show,  I  more.  And  let  none 
imagine  that  this  solicitude  about  the  external  appa 
ratus,  the  positive  form  of  faith,  the  historic  truth  of 
Christianity,  grows  out  of  the  least  distrust  of  freedom 
or  of  human  nature.  It  is  a  free  human  nature,  a  free, 
emancipated,  and  independent  thought  that  prompts 
and  enables  us  to  look  candidly  at  the  wants  of  our 
souls — to  elect  what  is  good  and  necessary  in  the  ex 
perience  of  the  past,  and  to  carry  it  with  us  into  the 
future.  If  freedom  or  progress  in  religion,  politics, 
or  domestic  life,  means  a  thoughtless  commitment  of 
ourselves  to  the  current  of  events,  a  blind  sweep  on  the 
tide  of  the  times  ;  if  it  involves  the  admission  that 
"  whatever  is,  is  right,"  and  safe  and  good  ;  if  it  im 
plies  disrespect  of  past  experience,  disconnection  with 
our  predecessors  in  faith  and  virtue — an  ignoring  of  old 
wisdom  and  old  truths — then  I  pronounce  freedom  and 
progress  opposed  to  reason,  enemies  of  humanity,  and 
foes  of  God.  But  if  freedom  and  progress  mean  the 


CHRISTIANITY — AN   HISTOKICAL    RELIGION.          75 

right  and  duty  of  the  human  soul  to  improve  upon  the 
past,  to  select  and  carry  with  it  all  that  is  sound  and 
strong  in  ancient  faith  and  practice,  while  we  anticipate 
all  we  can  of  future  good,  and  embrace  eagerly  all  new 
truths,  then  it  is  of  God,  and  is  rational,  Christian,  and 
divine.  Such  a  wise  and  holy  progress  will  never  suc 
ceed  in  leaving  historic  Christianity  behind  ;  will  never 
outgrow  Christ  ;  will  never  long  be  able  to  dispense 
with  the  outward  forms  and  helps  of  a  positive  worship, 
or  the  inwoven  strength  of  the  Christian  with  the 
secular  calendar.  At  present  we  are  in  a  chaotic  and 
most  unsatisfactory  state.  We  entertain  certain  wild, 
spontaneous,  undigested  notions  of  freedom  of  thought, 
conscience,  and  affections,  which,  carried  out  fearlessly 
and  to  their  natural  conclusion,  would  land  the  coun 
try,  the  age  and  the  church,  in  universal  lawlessness, 
anarchy,  and  impiety.  The  state,  the  church,  the 
home,  would  lose  their  sanctity,  and  no  government, 
no  worship,  no  marriage  terminate  the  mad  dream  of 
untrammelled  liberty  in  general  license.  Rapidly  are 
we  travelling  that  road.  Our  good  men  are  no  longer 
holding  themselves  responsible  for  the  government, 
general  or  local,  but  are  in  fatal  recklessness  saying  we 
wash  our  hands  of  the  blood  of  the  country  or  the  city. 
Our  most  gifted  and  bravest  religious  thinkers  are 
dwelling  in  exciting  harangues  upon  the  superiority  of 
insight  to  revelation,  of  natural  to  revealed  religion,  of 
a  free  and  spiritual  over  a  regulated  and  embodied 
faith,  while  the  few  who  dare  to  brave  the  instinctive, 
but  ever  and  ever  more  feeble  protest  of  society,  are 
throwing  doubts  over  the  sacredness  of  marriage,  and 
undermining  the  last  stronghold  of  virtue  in  the  Ameri- 


76  THE    RE-ADJUSTMENT    OF    FAITH. 

can  home.  All  this  is  natural,  necessary,  inevitable 
It  is  an  inexperienced  freedom,  trying  its  rights  ;  an 
emancipated  human  nature,  seeing  how  far  and  in  what 
directions  it  can  safely  go.  But  already  the  wounds 
and  injuries  which  society  experiences,  so  obvious  in  the 
crimes,  the  disorder,  the  impudence,  the  unhappiness 
of  our  social  state — our  children  rude,  irreverent,  and 
presumptuous — our  family  relations  unsatisfactory, 
cruel,  and  irksome — property  and  life  unsafe — litera 
ture  morbid,  passionate,  and  violent — amusement  spiced 
with  crime  and  indecency — government  suspected  and 
convicted  of  bribery  and  corruption — religious  institu 
tions  in  the  newer  parts  of  the  country  neglected  and 
despised — the  best  wit,  literature,  and  art  of  the  time 
thoroughly  alienated  from  the  Church,  so  that,  as  a 
rule,  authors,  historians,  artists,  statesmen,  are  neither 
church-goers  nor  professed  believers  in  historical  re 
ligion — all  this,  I  say,  necessary,  unavoidable  as  it  was 
as  a  tremendous  reaction  upon  old  world  superstition 
and  tyranny,  shows  us  that  we  have  misunderstood 
^freedom,  wronged  human  nature,  and  very  much 
neglected  the  true  conditions  of  domestic,  social,  and 
political  independence.  I  do  not  say  this,  God  knows, 
in  any  despair,  or  with  any  doubt  of  our  recovery. 
When  we  understand  the  source  of  evils,  and  are  alive 
to  their  existence,  they  are  already  half  conquered. 
And  we  are  beginning  to  see  and  confess  that  unregu 
lated  liberty,  undisciplined  freedom  of  thought,  un 
housed  and  unformalized  faith,  human  nature  setting 
up  on  its  own  account,  without  God  and  without 
Christ,  are  all,  necessarily,  failures.  We  are  beginning 
to  see  that  religion  is  not  a  spontaneous,  self-protect- 


CHRISTIANITY AN    HISTORICAL    RELIGION.          77 

ing  plant  ;  that  faith  is  not  safely  and  wisely  left  to  its 
own  growth  ;  that  it  will  not  answer  for  men  to  say  or 
to  think  that  it  is  of  no  consequence  what  they  believe, 
or  to  cast  themselves  in  a  fascinating  sloth  upon  their 
good  and  generous  intentions. 

No,  no,  my  brethren  ;  you  must  wear  the  volun 
tary  yoke  of  a  positive  religion,  a  religion  that  exacts 
some  reading,  some  study,  some  inquiry,  some  time, 
some  sacred  seasons  from  you — a  religion  which  asks 
attention  as  a  religion,  and  not  only  as  a  sentiment  or 
a  principle.  You  must  not  imagine  that  Christianity 
is  everywhere  and  nowhere  ;  every  thing  and  nothing  ; 
a  vague  sentiment ;  another  name  for  virtue ;  the 
mere  synonyme  of  goodness  and  truth.  It  is  a  religion 
of  facts,  an  historical,  positive  faith,  supporting  and 
illustrating  and  embodying  •  its  doctrines  in  the  inci 
dents  of  Christ's  career,  and  demanding  for  itself  visible 
incarnation  in  a  discipline,  a  worship,  and  a  church.  I 
believe,  and  I  assert  it  in  full  knowledge  of  all  the 
supercilious  sneers  of  advanced  thinkers  and  emanci 
pated  spiritualists,  transcendental  or  socialistic,  that 
the  decay  of  faith  in  historical  Christianity  and  the 
visible  Church  is  at  the  root  of  the  chief  evils  of  our 
country  and  age — is  the  thing  most  to  be  dreaded  and 
regretted  in  the  tendencies  of  the  times — the  chief 
enemy  of  our  political,  domestic,  and  personal  hap 
piness. 

A  lively  faith,  based  on  investigation,  in  the  his 
toric  truth  of  the  single  event  commemorated  by  this 
Easter  morning,  the  resurrection  of  Christ,  would 
change  the  condition  of  many  a  man's  whole  philoso 
phy  of  life — his  whole  views  of  morals  and  piety — his 


78  THE    RE-ADJUSTMENT    OF    FAITH. 

whole  theory  of  family  government  and  the  religious 
education  of  his  children.  For  if  the  resurrection  be  a 
literal  fact,  the  whole  miraculous  character  of  the  Gos 
pel  is  established  ;  and  that  established,  the  relations 
of  Christianity  to  human  life,  of  Christ  to  man,  become 
pregnant,  practical,  and  imperative  beyond  all  reckon 
ing.  It  is  no  wonder  a  visible  Church,  a  permanent 
ministry,  a  formal  worship,  a  systematic  discipline 
should  be  established,  to  enshrine,  preserve,  communi 
cate,  and  apply  such  an  astonishing  and  all-important 
relation  as  this.  Our  whole  attitude  of  resistance,  cu 
riosity,  suspense,  hypothesis,  towards  Christianity,  of 
proud  self-reliance  and  self-satisfaction,  is  changed  into 
an  humble  solicitude  to  receive  and  apply  the  divine 
grace,  instruction,  help,  and  salvation  in  Christ  our 
Lord,  by  the  simple  reception  into  thoughtful  and 
willing  minds  and  hearts,  of  the  great  central  fact  of 
Gospel  history,  the  resurrection  of  Christ. 

That  resurrection,  as  a  Christian  minister,  I  an 
nounce  and  proclaim  to-day  as  a  fact,  a  pure,  proven, 
historic  fact,  a  glorious  fact,  worthy  of  God,  its  author, 
and  most  welcome  to  man,  its  object.  If  it  be  not  a 
fact,  fling  your  Bibles  into  the  fire  ;  for  they  are  de 
liberate  teachers  of  falsehood.  If  it  be  not  a  fact,  the 
apostles  are  conspirators  in  a  fraud,  and  Christ  is  an 
accomplice  of  their  crime.  If  it  be  not  a  fact,  history 
is  itself  a  common  liar,  and  the  learning  and  faith  of 
ages  are  but  proofs  of  the  worthlessness  and  folly  of 
human  testimony  and  human  inquiry.  But  if  the 
resurrection  be  a  positive  fact,  we  have  a  religion  in 
deed.  Christ  is  our  master  and  Saviour  in  no  rhetori 
cal  sense,  but  truly  and  literally.  The  Church  is  not 


CHRISTIANITY — AN   HISTORICAL    RELIGION.          79 

an  institution  standing  in  men's  breath,  a  prejudice  of 
past  ages,  and  soon  to  be  a  memory  of  which  wiser 
generations  are  ashamed,  but  a  God-founded,,  eternal, 
and  authoritative  institution,  standing  with  the  family 
and  the  State,  permanent  and  essential  parts  of  civili 
zation,  ramparts  and  dykes  which  freedom  must  re 
spect,  lighthouses  and  harbors  which  human  nature 
must  support  and  endow,  even  with  her  last  dollar  and 
her  last  strength  ! 

APRIL  12,  1857. 


SERMON  VI. 

"THE  WORD  OP  GOD." 

"  And  the  seed  is  the  Word  of  God."— LUKE  iii.  11. 

IN  sympathy  with  the  season,  I  addressed  you  last 
Sunday  morning  upon  the  preparation  of  the  spiritual 
soil  for  the   seed  ;   the   opening  and   softening  of  the 
ground  for  the  great  Sower's  hand,  ever  ready  to  fling 
its  treasure  into  the  open  furrows.     I   propose  now  to 
follow  up  the  analogy  then  traced  between  the  showers 
of  spring  and  the  mild  and  subduing  influences  of  God's 
providence,  with  a  contemplation  of  the  resemblances 
between  the  natural  seed  and  the  Word  of  God.     But 
I  must  first  enter  upon  a  careful  examination  of  the 
phrase,  "  the  Word  of  God  "  ;  for  in  its  perverted  use 
Hes  the  stronghold  of  modern  error,  the  great  obstacle 
to  the  progress  of  natural  and  simple  opinions  in  regard 
to  the  will  of  our  Creator  and  the  teachings  of  our  Sa 
viour.     At  every  step,  the  truth,  as  it  beats  in  men's 
hearts,  is  blocked  by  some  knotty  text,  which  is  assumed 
to  call  itself  the  Word  of  God,  because  it  is  contained 
within  the  covers  of  the   Bible,  no  matter  by  whom  it 
was  said,  on  what  occasion,  or  for  what  purpose.     It  is 


81 


time  this  melancholy  and  obstinate  superstition,  which 
crowds  and  chokes  the  truth,  were  treated  according  to 
its  deserts. 

It  was  neither  to  the  New  nor  to  the  Old  Testa 
ment  that  Jesus  referred,  when  he  said,  "  and  the  seed 
is  the  Word  of  God."  Not  a  page  of  the  New  Testa 
ment  was  then  written,  nor  was  it  to  his  purpose  to 
name  the  old  Jewish  Scriptures.  It  was  of  that  Word, 
ever  sounding  in  men's  hearts,  of  God's  voice  heard  in 
the  conscience,  felt  in  the  soul,  and  illustrated  and  sig 
nalized  in  his  own  spirit  and  convictions,  that  our  Lord 
spake,  when  he  named  ' '  the  Word  of  God."  Free  your 
minds  at  once  from  the  narrow  and  modern  sense  in 
which  the  phrases,  "the  Word"  and  "the  Word  of 
God  "  are  customarily  used.  "  The  Word  of  God  "  is 
not  a  printed  or  articulated  sign  of  thought  ;  a  sound 
made  by  the  lips,  or  suggested  by  a  cipher.  And  it  is 
a  misleading  and  perplexing  habit  we  have  acquired  or 
inherited  of  confounding  the  words  of  the  Bible  with 
"  the  Word  of  God,"  the  literal  syllables  and  sentences 
of  the  sacred  book,  with  the  mind,  and  will,  and  spirit 
of  God,  written  in  our  natures  and  republished  in  our 
Scriptures.  It  is  in  the  true  interest  of  the  Bible,  and 
from  a  profound  reverence  for  its  essential  truth  and 
holy  significance — from  an  ever-increasing  devotion  to 
its  study,  and  an  ever-growing  feeling  of  its  permanent 
connection  with  the  progress  of  civilization,  and  pure 
morality,  and  sound  religion,  that  I  feel  it  necessary  to 
discriminate  with  great  and  unqualified  plainness  be 
tween  a  true,  and  a  superstitious,  veneration  for  the 
Scriptures,  The  Scriptures  are  holy,  but  they  are  not 
holier  than  conscience,  than  reason  ;  and  those  who  at- 


82  THE    RE-ADJUSTMENT    OF    FAITH. 

tempt  to  make  them  so,  desecrate  God's  Word  in  one 
place  to  honor  it  in  another.  The  Bible  is  the  Word 
of  God,  as  the  conscience  is  the  voice  of  God  ;  but  the 
words  of  the  Bible  are  not  the  words  of  God,  any  more 
than  the  decisions  of  the  conscience  are  the  decisions 
of  God.  The  mind,  the  will,  the  spirit  of  God,  whose 
inspiration  informed  our  consciences  without  making 
them  infallible,  has  produced  the  Bible  without  making 
it  perfect.  He  who  studies  the  holy  book  in  all  its 
parts  will  discern  a  divine  communication,  a  sacred 
teaching,  an  unmistakable  guidance,  running  through 
and  shining  out  of  its  complete  tenor,  as  a  river  runs 
through  a  broken  country,  or  as  an  expression  of  benig 
nity,  of  law  and  order,  of  justice  and  mercy,  runs  through 
the  diverse  and  often  contrasted  and  puzzling  effects  of 
external  nature.  We  must  fasten  upon  the  general 
effect,  not  the  particular  detail. 

As  it  will  not  answer  to  separate  and  fragmentize 
nature,  and  pronounce  each  and  every  part,  taken  by 
itself,  to  be  indicative  of  the  benevolence  of  its  author 
— as  there  are  deserts  and  disorders,  defects  and  con 
tradictions,  cruelties  and  monsters,  poisons  and  miasmas 
in  nature,  which  no  doubt  have  their  providential  use, 
but  of  which  no  one  is  to  be  regarded  as  having  a  right 
to  represent  any  portion  of  the  divine  design  and  char 
acter,  any  more  than  the  grumbling  drum  or  shrill  life 
in  a  grand  orchestra  have  a  right  to  assert  an  excellence 
of  their  own,  distinct  from  that  they  owe  to  combina 
tion  and  a  disappearance  in  the  general  effect ;  so  it 
will  not  do  to  consider  each  and  every  Old  Testament 
story,  or  Jewish  ordinance,  or  prophetic  curse,  or  local 
argument,  as  in  itself  an  expression  of  God's  mind  and 


"  THE    WORD    OF    GOD."  83 

heart,  whether  it  be  the  deceptions  of  Abraham,  the 
cruelties  of  Joshua,  the  debaucheries  of  David,  the  im 
precations  of  the  prophets,  the  historical  mistakes  of 
the  evangelists,  the  imperfect  science  or  rhetorical 
rudenesses  of  any  of  the  sacred  writers.  It  is  with 
the  Scriptures  as  it  is  with  nature.  "  By  the  Word  of 
God/'  says  St.  Peter.,  "  the  heavens  were  of  old  and  the 
earth  standing  out  of  the  water  and  in  the  water." 
Yes,  and  every  thing  upon  the  earth,  and  above  and 
beneath  it,  was  created  by  the  Word  of  God  ;  but  we 
do  not  on  that  account  deem  it  necessary  to  admire, 
and  curiously  consider  and  maintain,  as  of  equal  value, 
and  beauty,  and  instructiveness,  all  parts  of  nature — 
the  disgusting  and  repulsive,  or  violent  and  cruel — as 
we  do  the  lovely,  attractive,  mild,  and  generous  opera 
tions  and  exhibitions  of  her  hand  !  We  believe,  and 
truly,  that  all  parts  of  nature,  duly  understood,  have  a 
divine  significance.  We  know  that  what  are  poisons 
to  some  creatures  are  the  chosen  medicines  of  others, 
and  that  the  offal  of  the  nobler  beasts  is  the  banquet 
of  the  meaner  ones.  But  we  rightly  leave  the  poison 
to  its  true  proprietor ;  the  offal  to  its  natural  owner. 
And  it  is  precisely  this  that  we  ought  to  do  with  what 
ever  contradicts  our  reason,  or  wounds  our  moral  sensi 
bilities,  or  shocks  our  Christian  instincts  and  spiritual 
tastes,  in  that  half-human,  half-divine  record  of  God's 
doings  and  judgments  we  call  the  Bible. 

We  are  not  to  grieve  the  Holy  Spirit  by  forcing 
ourselves  to  approve  or  justify  any  thing  there  which 
we  do  not  approve  elsewhere,  nor  are  we  at  any  time  to 
think  the  words  of  the  Scriptures  have  any  authority 
against  the  general  spirit  of  the  Scriptures.  There  is 


84  THE     RE-ADJUSTMENT    OF    FAITH. 

no  single  text  and  no  combination  of  texts,  that  has 
any  right  to  control  our  judgment  or  opinions,  when 
brought  into  antagonism  with  the  ordinary  and  plain 
tenor  of  the  whole  book.  The  first  thing  to  be  assumed 
of  the  Scriptures  is,  that  being  the  Word  of  God,  they 
speak  common  sense,  support  common  morality,  breathe 
charity,  uphold  virtue,  respect  reason,  are  friendly  to 
humanity.  We  are  to  assume,  therefore,  with  all  bold 
ness,  the  impossibility  of  their  teaching  contradictions, 
cruelties,  partialities,  terrors,  and  riddles  ;  and  if  any 
knotty  text,  or  harsh  and  bloody  imprecation,  or  verbal 
absurdity,  is  brought  to  confound  us  and  our  reason  out 
of  the  Bible,  we  are  to  treat  it  precisely  as  we  do  the 
things  which  offend  our  instincts  in  nature — spiders,  or 
cobwebs,  or  bad  odors,  or  toads,  or  tornados — get  out 
of  the  way  of  them  as  soon  as  possible,  as  being  offen 
sive  to  our  moral  taste,  our  better  knowledge  of  God's 
truth  and  God's  language.  We  will  not  conceal  the 
slaughter  of  the  Canaanites  by  Joshua,  nor  David's 
curses  on  his  enemies,  nor  Paul's  quarrel  with  Peter, 
nor  Peter's  denial  of  Christ ;  but  neither  will  we  ap 
prove  them,  nor  quote  them  as  authorities  for  our  own 
conduct,  even  if  they  are  recorded  as  having  been  done 
by  divine  commandment.  We  do  not  believe  any  of 
them  to  have  been  acceptable  to  God.  We  know  that 
good  men  have  honestly  thought  themselves  acting  un 
der  divine  command,  when  they  were  really  obeying 
only  their  own  passions  ;  that  even  Paul  verily  thought 
it  doing  God  service  to  blaspheme  the  name  of  Christ. 
But  we  are  not  going  to  resign  our  own  enlightened 
sense  of  God's  character,  enlightened  by  this  very  Word 
of  God,  to  bow  before  certain  words  which  certain  peo- 


85 

pie,  without  any  authority  from  Christ,  have  chosen  to 
call  plenarily  inspired.  For  our  part,  we  are  too  jealous 
for  God's  honor,  and  truth,  and  wisdom,  to  call  any 
thing  inspired  which  is  not  obviously  true  and  good  ; 
and  if  this  is  called  presumption — if  this  is  thought 
setting  ourselves  above  the  Word  of  God,  or  setting  in 
judgment  on  God's  Word — we  can  only  reply,  that  it  is 
base  cowardice  which  makes  us  set  the  words  of  any 
book  higher  than  the  word  of  God  in  our  souls  ;  that  we 
cannot  do  it  in  reality,  and  do  not  do  it,  but  only  pre 
tend  to,  emptily  thinking  something  is  to  be  gained  by 
flattering  an  imaginary  jealousy  which  God  might  have 
of  human  reason,  that  light  which  lighteth  every  man 
that  cometh  into  the  world,  and  which  God  himself 
kindled. 

"  The  Word  of  God,"  in  the  use  our  Saviour  and  his 
apostles  make  of  that  phrase,  never  means  the  text  and 
language  of  the  Scriptures.  It  always  means  the  mind, 
and  will,  and  spirit  of  God,  however  made  known. 
When  an  order  or  commandment  from  God — whether 
by  a  vision,  a  mental  impression,  a  dream,  or  a  conscien 
tious  impulse — is  received,  it  is  not  the  words  or  signs 
by  which  the  direction  is  given,  that  are  entitled  to  the 
name  of  "  the  Word  of  God,"  but  the  thing  to  be  done, 
the  truth  to  be  welcomed,  or  communicated.  The 
Word  of  God,  moreover,  is  not  the  arbitrary  command 
of  God,  but  the  wisdom  of  God  ;  it  is  a  spirit,  a  tem 
per^  a  truth  ;  not  a  regulation,  a  requirement,  or  pre 
cept,  owing  its  value  purely  to  its  source.  God  being 
considered  and  assumed  to  be  perfectly  holy,  true,  pure, 
good  ;  his  word  is  this  holiness,  truth,  purity,  goodness, 
considered  as  in  any  way  communicated  to  men.  Thus 


86  THE    RE-ADJUSTMENT    OF   FAITH. 

the  creation,  considered  as  full  of  wisdom,  truth,  and 
order,  and  divinely  arranged  to  teach  these  to  man,  is 
just  as  much  "  the  Word  of  God  "  as  the  Scriptures,  for 
it  is  distinctly  and  repeatedly  said  that  the  world  and 
the  heavens,  the  earth,  and  all  that  in  them  is,  were 
made  by  the  Word  of  God.  The  truth  is,  the  Word  of 
God  is  God  himself,  speaking  in  any  of  his  chosen 
tongues,  whether  by  His  works,  His  son,  or  His  spirit  in 
our  souls. 

Hear  what  John  says  :  "  In  the  beginning  was  the 
word,  and  the  word  was  with  God,  and  the  word  was 
God."  This  word  was  made  flesh,  and  dwelt  among 
us,  full  of  grace  and  truth.  Christ  is  the  Word  of  God, 
and  we  must  properly  distinguish  between  our  rever 
ence  for  Christ  and  our  reverence  for  his  words.  It  is 
only  as  his  words  help  us  to  see  himself,  his  heart  and 
soul,  that  we  really  reach  the  Word  of  God  in  him.  _  He 
was  greater,  wiser,  holier,  than  any  thing  he  said,  and 
it  is  to  get  at  him  that  we  study  his  actions  and  history 
as  well  as  his  words  and  precepts.  The  soul,  too,  is  the 
Word  of  God.  "  Say  not/'  says  Paul,  in  the  epistle  to 
the  Romans — "  say  not  in  thy  heart  who  shall  ascend 
into  heaven,  (that  is,  to  bring  Christ  down  from 
above,)  or  who  shall  descend  into  the  deep,  (that  is, 
to  bring  Christ  up  again  from  the  dead.)  But  what 
fiuith  it  ?  The  word  is  nigh  thee,  even  in  thy 
mouth  and  in  thy  heart."  Since  the  Protestant 
Reformation  it  has  been  convenient  for  the  Church 
to  cultivate  a  superstitious  and  exclusive  venera 
tion  for  the  letter  of  the  Bible,  which  is  really  fatal 
to  any  true  and  Scriptural  idea  of  the  meaning  of  the 
phrase,  "  the  Word  of  God  ; "  i.  e.,  the  truth,  the  wis- 


87 

dom,  the  love  of  God,  considered  as  in  any  way  de 
clared  to  man.  I  pronounce  this  servile  deference  to 
the  letter  of  the  Scriptures  a  gross  superstition,  an  in 
sult  to  the  divine  reason,  and  to  Christ's  own  authority. 
It  is  a  miserable  perpetuation  of  the  Jews'  soul-crush 
ing  worship  of  the  very  letter  of  the  Mosaic  law,  which 
Christ  in  vain  resisted  and  reproved.  It  is  not  only 
most  dangerous  to  the  progress  and  growth  of  the  truth, 
to  our  perception  of  the  real  meaning  and  intent  of 
God's  Word,  but  it  is  quite  as  perilous  to  the  real  au 
thority  and  sacredness  of  the  Bible  itself,  with  men  of 
intelligence  and  courage. 

The  Bible  owes  its  continued  authority  and  influ 
ence  to  the  fact  that  it  really  contains  the  Word  of 
God  ;  that  in  its  various  records  flows  down  the  full 
and  vigorous  river  of  God's  truth  and  grace,  in  the 
history  of  a  race  peculiarly  and  providentially  fitted  to 
receive  special  communications  from  on  high.  Nothing 
can  ever  change  or  destroy  the  sublime  merits  and  re 
ligious  influence  of  the  Mosaic  dispensation  ;  nothing 
outlive  the  strains  of  David's  glorious  harp  ;  nothing 
take  the  place  of  Isaiah's  exalted  prophecies  ;  much  less 
can  the  record  of  our  Saviour's  life  and  conversations 
ever  cease  to  win  the  profoundest  reverence  and  grati 
tude  of  mankind.  But  the  habit  of  confounding  the 
words  of  the  Scriptures  with  "  the  Word  of  God  "  will 
create  secret  scepticism  as  to  the  whole  truth  of  a  book, 
which  it  is  falsely  and  superstitiously  asserted  claims  to 
have  been  written  page  for  page  and  word  for  word,  by 
God  or  by  God's  immediate  interposition.  Every  error, 
extravagance,  inconsistency,  mistake,  contained  in  a 
volume,  made  up  of  the  works  of  fifty  different  writers, 


88  THE    RE-ADJUSTMENT    OF    FAITH. 

in  twenty  different  periods  of  history,  is  at  once  made 
an  objection  to  the  credibility  and  value  of  the  book 
itself — a  course  as  rational  as  to  hold  the  fountains  of 
the  Hudson  river  answerable  for  the  litter  and  offal  dis 
charged  by  the  brooks  and  streams,  the  canals  and 
sluices,  that  empty  into  its  current  ;  or  for  the  discolora 
tion  caused  by  the  successive  soils  over  which  it  flows  ; 
or  to  pronounce  it  not  a  great,  or  beneficent,  or  God- 
given  river,  on  account  of  these  superfluities.  Is  it  not 
navigable  ?  does  it  not  fertilize  the  banks  it  flows 
through  ?  ventilate  the  city  ?  beautify  and  refresh  a 
hundred  towns  ?  Does  it  ever  dry  up,  or  fail  to  be 
healthful,  nutritive,  and  benignant  for  all  ?  Is  it  not 
the  great  feature  of  the  country  through  which  it  runs  ? 
All  this  ;  but  there  is  feculence,  and  float,  and  cloudi 
ness  in  its  waters  !  Shall  we  fill  it  up,  then,  and  abol 
ish  it  ?  So  would  the  narrow  sceptics,  the  products  of 
the  narrow  credulists,  do.  when  they  discover  verbal 
errors,  chronological  mistakes,  or  even  moral  imperfec 
tions  in  the  Bible.  "  What  ! "  they  exclaim,  "  the  Word 
of  God  with  errors  in  it  !  We  will  have  nothing  to  do 
with  such  an  absurdity  !  "  The  Bible,  we  answer,  is  not 
"  the  Word  of  God/'  and  the  Word  of  God  has  and  can 
have  no  errors  in  it.  Well  does  Agur  say,  "  Every 
word  of  God  is  pure.  *  *  *  Add  thou  not  unto 
his  words,  lest  he  reprove  thee  and  thou  be  found  a 
liar."  (Proverbs  xxx.  5,  6.)  But  the  Bible  contains 
the  Word  of  God,  and  much  beside,  as  the  Hudson  holds 
its  own  waters  and  also  the  feculence  and  litter  con 
tributed  by  many  poorer  sources  to  its  flood.  God's 
Word  is  not  responsible  for  the  stuttering  and  stammer 
ing  of  those  who  have  tried  to  speak  it.  Happily  all 


"  THE    WORD    OF    GOD."  89 

their  impediments  and  roughness  of  speech  have  not 
been  able  to  conceal  from  the  willing  and  reverent  ear 
his  real  and  genuine  intent.  The  New  Testament  is 
the  criticism  and  correction  of  the  Old,  and  the  life  and 
character  of  Christ  is  the  criticism  and  correction  of 
what  his  disciples  have  said  about  him.  The  soul  of 
man  is  a  perpetual  and  lawful  criticism,  under  a  provi 
dential  development,  of  all  that  has  been  previously 
thought  and  said.  Life,  experience,  the  unfolding  of 
Providence,  the  progress  of  Christianity,  all  are  bring 
ing  the  Word  of  God  out  into  purer  and  nobler  relief 
from  the  mere  words  of  holy  writ,  until  finally,  there 
shall  not  be  one  cloud  of  prejudice,  superstition,  or  lit- 
erality,  to  hide  the  noble,  generous,  humane,  and  wel 
come  proportions  of  God's  eternal  Word. 

Turn  now  to  the  analogy  instituted  in  our  text  : 
"  The  seed  is  the  Word  of  God."  How  instructive  is 
the  figure  our  Saviour  here  uses  upon  the  point  we  have 
been  examining  !  "  And  the  seed  is  the  word  of  God/' 
The  Word  of  God  was  sown  by  that  great  husbandman, 
our  Lord,  in  the  souls  of  men.  The  truths  he  taught 
and  exemplified  touching  the  paternal  character  of  God, 
the  sanctity  of  conscience,  the  beauty  of  holiness,  the 
relations  of  loving  service  between  man  and  his  brother, 
the  community  of  the  race,  the  glory  of  self-sacrifice, 
the  superiority  of  the  soul  to  death — these  were  the 
Word  of  God,  the  precious  seed  he  sowed  in  the  hearts 
and  souls  of  men.  The  mere  words  that  contain  these 
truths  are  the  husk  around  them  ;  'the  narratives  in 
which  they  are  found  are  often  like  the  dead  stalks  and 
leaves  with  which  the  living  germs  have  been  harvested. 
These  seeds  are  not  to  be  eaten;  nor  are  they  to  be 


90  THE    RE-ADJUSTMENT    OF    FAITH. 

stored  away  ;  they  are  to  "be  planted.  Their  efficacy 
does  not  lie  in  the  preservation  of  their  present  shape, 
nor  in  their  power  to  propagate  themselves,  but  in  their 
fitness  to  grow — to  draw  nourishment  from  our  hearts, 
and  to  become  what  other  seeds  become,  plants,  such 
as  our  Father  hath  planted.  When  the  Word  of  God 
enters  into  the  soul,  it  is  meant  to  draw  life  from  the 
soul ;  to  have  the  thoughts,  and  affections,  and  expe 
riences  of  men,  act  upon  it  ;  and  while,  like  a  living 
germ,  it  preserves  its  identity,  and  shapes  the  nourish 
ment  it  draws  to  its  own  kind,  it  is  itself  affected  and 
meant  to  be  affected  by  the  properties  of  the  soil  to 
which  it  is  confided.  The  Word  of  God  was  sown  in 
human  nature,  on  its  appropriate  soil.  The  precious 
seed  did  not  despise  the  ground  it  entered,  nor  could  it 
have  any  growth  except  in  that  soil  of  human  hearts. 

Religion — from  the  Latin  religare,  to  bind  together 
— implies  two  parties.  Man  is  as  necessary  a  party  to 
it  as  God  ;  the  juices  and  chemistry  of  the  soil,  as  the 
vitality  and  power  of  the  germ.  The  Word  of  God  re 
spects  the  soul  of  man,  as  much  as  the  soul  of  man,  the 
Word  of  God.  Our  relations  with  our  Maker  are  recip 
rocal.  He  does  not  want  slaves  for  his  subjects,  or  bas 
tards  for  his  children,  or  a  blasted  and  poisonous  soil 
for  his  seed-ground  ;  and  therefore  all  those  servile  and 
debasing  feelings  which  would  prostrate  our  nature, 
vilify  our  reason,  resign  our  freedom,  abandon  our  judg 
ment,  in  the  presence  of  God's  Word — as  if  the  truth, 
the  authority,  the  goodness  of  God,  were  to  be  honored 
by  our  self-contempt — are  grounded  upon  a  grovelling 
superstition.  The  soil  for  God's  Word  is  freedom,  rea 
son,  knowledge,  trust,  love  ;  not  self-contempt,  timid- 


"  THE   WORD   OF   GOD."  91 

ity,  cowardice,  ignorance,  creeping  and  self-falsifying. 
This  is  the  barren  rock,  the  sandy  wayside,  the  shallow 
top-soil ;  not  the  deep,  rich,  generous  loam.  God's 
seed  wants  all  man's  powers,  faculties,  tastes,  passions, 
as  the  noble  soil  for  its  growth.  And  there  never  was 
a  greater  and  profounder  mistake,  than  that  which  has 
made  the  human  intellect  stand  a  trembling  coward 
in  the  presence  of  the  divine  Word.  Keason  shrinks 
abashed  before  the  very  light  that  kindled  it,  and  all 
the  sacred  affections  and  natural  instincts  of  men  creep 
into  their  holes,  like  newts  and  bats  at  the  rising  of  the 
sun.  Let  human  infirmities,  sensual  passions,  selfish 
thoughts,  and  malignant  feelings,  be  afraid  of  God's 
Word  ;  let  them  feel  their  inability  and  their  folly  in 
attempting  to  judge  it.  But  for  reason,  conscience, 
humane  feelings,  universal  sympathies— for  them  to 
think  they  are  not  on  a  level  with  God's  Word,  being 
indeed  God's  Word,  too — for  them  to  think  they  have 
not  as  good  a  right  to  question  the  Scriptures  as  the 
Scriptures  to  question  them — for  them  to  feel  abashed 
and  humbled  in  the  presence  of  God's  spirit,  or  God's 
truth — for  them  to  meet  the  messenger  of  the  Lord 
with  bandaged  eyes,  and  to  think  it  an  honor  to  his 
message  to  listen  to  it  in  chains — this  is,  indeed,  a 
veritable  part  of  the  worship  of  the  crocodile  and  the 
serpent — of  the  horrid  fascination  of  the  ugly — the 
worship  of  mere  power,  more  venerable  as  it  is  more 
arbitrary. 

It  is  to  inspire  fresh  confidence  in  reason,  in  con 
science,  in  our  highest  instincts  and  sympathies,  that 
the  Word  of  God  comes  to  us,  just  as  it  is  to  bring  out 
and  turn  to  use  the  vigorous  properties  of  a  noble  soil, 


92  THE    RE-ADJUSTMENT    OF    FAITH. 

that  good  seed  is  sown.  Nothing  has  falsified  and  per 
verted  religion  like  fear,  distrust  of  natural  conscience, 
and  instinctive  sentiments  of  right.  What  is  lumi 
nous,  courageous,  aspiring,  and  generous  in  man,  is  the 
great  interpreter  of  what  is  divine  and  eternal  in  God. 
The  Gospel  has  too  often  heen  an  acorn  planted  in  a 
flower-pot  instead  of  a  field,  and  shivering  its  petty 
vessel  before  completing  the  first  stage  of  its  own  gi 
gantic  destiny.  It  has  been  belittled  by  the  dwarf- 
ishness  of  its  receivers.  Thus  the  Word  of  God  has 
been  bound,  until  men  seek  free  thoughts,  free  specula 
tions,  free  hopes,  and  free  aspirations,  anywhere  rather 
than  under  its  sad  and  enslaving  influence.  As  if  the 
Word  of  God  were  not  in  highest  and  noblest  sympathy 
with  all  thought,  aspiration,  generous  faith,  and  high 
resolve  ;  as  if  the  oak  loved  the  winds  and  storms  of  the 
sky,  the  wild  motion  of  its  own  swaying  branches,  the 
fitful  changes  of  the  clouds,  more  than  the  Word  of  God 
loves  the  fresh  play  of  human  faculties,  and  human 
speculations,  and  human  hopes. 

If  there  is  any  time  when  we  ought  to  be  free, 
strong,  brave,  determined  on  the  use  of  our  own  God- 
inspired  natures,  it  is  when  we  seat  ourselves  to  the 
study  of  the  Scriptures.  Every  particle  of  mind  and 
heart  and  conscience,  every  instinct  of  truth,  every  ex 
perience  of  life,  should  then  be  in  active  exercise  ;  for 
the  word  is  seed,  and  a  dead  soil,  to  which  light  and 
heat  are  denied,  out  of  which  vitality  and  richness  have 
gone,  can  do  nothing  to  quicken  or  nourish  the  germ  ! 
To  hide  our  doubts,  to  quench  our  curiosity,  to  force  our 
faith,  to  try  to  believe  what  is  not  credible — do  you 
imagine  this  to  be  an  humble,  acceptable  frame  of  mind  ? 


93 


Does  the  Word  of  God  ask  to  be  treated  with  gallantry, 
forbearance,  and  politeness  ?  Ah  !  this  is  what  de 
grades  it,  like  a  courtier's  false  courtesy  to  the  woman 
he  means  to  betray.  No  ;  the  Word  of  God  asks  our 
manhood,  our  experience,  our  largest  thoughts  and 
grandest  feelings,  to  judge  it.  It  says,  Come,  let  us 
reason  together  !  It  puts  itself  upon  trial.  It  asks  to 
be  received  into  the  genuine,  hearty,  and  robust  faith 
of  our  souls,  like  the  truths  of  nature,  science,  and  life. 
It  wants  a  warm  strong  soil  for  a  vigorous  and  aspiring 
seed  ;  and  until  we  learn  to  read  the  Bible  and  study 
religion,  in  the  great  exercise  of  all  our  powers,  in  the 
fullest  light  of  all  our  experience,  in  the  most  rigorous 
application  of  common  sense,  God's  Word,  and  God's 
truth,  and  Christ's  cause,  will  be  in  the  eclipse  they 
now  suffer — will  be  not  the  light,  a.nd  help,  and  glory 
of  the  strong,  the  resolute,  the  thoughtful,  and  the  free, 
but  the  refuge  of  the  superstitious  and  ignorant ;  the 
policy  of  the  prudent,  the  machinery  of  a  priesthood ; 
the  useless  and  decaying  heirlooms  of  a  venerable  past ; 
the  source  of  convenient  prejudices  for  governing  the 
weak-hearted  and  the  feeble-minded.  The  seed  is  the 
Word  of  God. 

Will  the  day  ever  come,  my  brethren,  when  the 
sacredness  we  now  superstitiously  confine  to  the  Scrip 
tures  shall  be  extended  to  the  soul  of  man,  his  reason, 
his  affections,  his  conscience  ;  and  to  Nature  herself — 
each  of  them  a  book  of  God,  all  volumes  of  one  work, 
truly  coherent,  equally  divine,  and  not  intelligible  ex 
cept  in  connection  and  harmony  with  each  other  ?  The 
faculties  of  man  are  divine  seeds  sown  in  the  soil  of  his 
nature  and  circumstances.  Keason,  conscience,  in- 


94  THE    RE-ADJUSTMENT   OF    FAITH. 

stinct  !  what  nourishment  and  growth  do  they  not  find 
in  our  human  lot  !  but  how,  under  all  circumstances, 
they  preserve  something  of  their  original  type,  and 
what  a  divine  independence  and  indestructibleness  they 
possess — how  incapable  of  long  perversion  and  long 
concealment  they  are  !  We  are  often  under  the  foolish 
mistake  that  reason  has  some  power  to  choose  its  own 
arbitrary  conclusions  ;  conscience  and  will,  some  au 
thority  to  settle  their  questions  by  caprice.  Men,  no 
doubt,  are  capricious  and  arbitrary,  but  reason  and  con 
science  are  never  so.  It  is  by  acting  against  reason 
and  conscience  that  we  exhibit  our  wilfulness  and  folly. 
When  figs  produce  thistles,  and  thistles  figs,  we  may 
expect  reason  to  bear  folly,  and  conscience  to  counte 
nance  immorality.  No  !  reason  and  conscience  are 
seeds  sown  in  us,  having  a  divine  and  peculiar  type, 
and  destined  to  produce  a  peculiar  fruit.  They  may 
find  a  bad  soil,  a  poor  nurture,  little  sun  and  little  rain, 
and  they  will  produce  very  imperfect  fruit  ;  but  then  it 
is  not  their  fault,  but  the  fault  of  the  soil  they  find. 
They  are  always  good  seed  ;  always  sacred  and  divine 
in  their  rights,  and  no  more  liable  to  abuse  and  perver 
sion  than  the  written  word,  being  themselves  the  un 
written  word — the  elder  Scriptures  in  men's  hearts. 
When  we  want  to  know  what  God  made  us  for,  we  are 
to  study  the  seed  he  planted  in  our  nature,  and  we  are 
not  to  believe  any  account  of  our  origin  or  destiny,  be 
the  same  what  it  may,  which  contradicts  the  Word  of 
God,  spoken  in  our  mental  and  moral  constitution. 
With  the  brave  Paul,  we  should  say,  Though  an  angel 
from  heaven  preach  another  Gospel  than  this,  let  him 
be  accursed. 


95 


As  the  faculties  of  man  are  planted  in  his  nature, 
BO  are  the  truths  of  revelation  and  the  doctrines  of  the 
Scriptures  planted  in  the  Church,  to  grow  there,  and 
show  what  they  are  by  what  they  come  to.  And  they 
have  grown  !  grown  and  outgrown  many  of  the  preju 
dices  of  men.  Every  now  and  then,  becoming  used  and 
attached  to  the  stage  of  growth  reached  at  some 
highly  luxuriant  season  of  faith  and  practice,  perhaps 
centuries  ago,  men  have  said  they  had  attained  their 
exact  maturity,  and  must  not  grow  any  further  !  Fur 
ther  growth,  in  short,  became  troublesome.  Their  roots 
had  struck  down  into  the  earth  and  invaded  the  foun 
dations  of  men's  dwellings,  or  their  branches  had  tow 
ered  and  spread  till  they  threatened  to  push  over  some 
interest  that  once  asked  their  shelter.  And  then,  what 
a  clamor  about  latitudinarianism,  and  going  too  far, 
and  getting  out  of  people's  reach,  and  radicalism,  we 
have  had  !  The  truth  is,  seeds  are  nothing  unless  they 
are  radical,  and  all  growths  are  poor  unless  they  are 
broad  and  wide,  that  is,  latitudinarian.  The  Word  of 
God,  in  Christ's  life  and  character,  is  the  most  vigorous 
seed  in  all  history.  Its  root  is  the  oldest,  and  its  head 
is  likely  to  be  the  largest.  It  is  a  tree  whose  leaves 
are  for  the  healing 'of  the  nations.  In  God's  name,  let 
it  not  be  given  over  to  the  pruning  and  hacking  of  the 
ological  horticulturists.  Let  it  not  be  shut  up  in  a 
conservatory  of  moral  herbalists.  It  is  not  a  sensitive 
plant,  but  a  vine  native  to  all  countries,  stronger  than 
any  winter,  and  which  asks  only  freedom  and  room,  to 
bear  continually  'richer  and  nobler  fruits  for  all  peoples. 

Let  nature  teach  us  confidence  in  God  and  in  God's 
protection  of  his  own  Word.  The  seed  is  the  Word  of 


96  THE    RE-ADJUSTMENT    OF    FAITH. 

God — aye,  that  natural  seed  that  men  are  now  planting 
in  their  gardens  and  fields.  God  speaks  to  the  earth, 
in  the  significant  language  of  these  tiny  seeds,  finer 
than  the  monotonous  dots  of  the  telegraphic  tongue, 
which  in  every  minute  and  indistinguishable  shape,  we 
carry  in  our  hands,  and  sow  and  plant  in  the  soil.  How 
dead  and  unmeaning  they  look — how  similar  in  form, 
and  taste,  and  smell,  and  appearance  !  and  yet  how 
miraculously  each  keeps  the  specific  secret  God  has 
committed  to  it  !  how  loudly  all  finally  tell  the  precise 
word  he  spake  to  them  !  "  Go/'  says  the  Almighty  to 
the  seed  which  is  his  Word,  "  cover  this  field  with 
golden  wheat  ;  go  make  that  gay  with  tasseled  corn  ; 
stand  here  in  glistening  flax  ;  spring  up  yonder  in 
bursting  bolls  of  cotton,  and  far  down  under  the  sun,  in 
bristling  ranks  of  juicy  cane  ;  become  the  orange  grove 
of  Louisiana  ;  the  nutty  wood  of  Illinois  ;  the  luscious 
pineapple  of  Cuba  ;  the  oak  forest  of  Canada.  Be  al 
ways  what  I  sent  thee  to  be.  Speak  out,  in  language 
that  every  eye  can  read,  the  word  which  ungrown,  no 
man,  prior  to  experience,  as  he  beheld  the  seed,  could 
interpret  !  " 

Do  we  ever  sufficiently  consider,  that  all  the  cul 
ture,  soil,  sun,  rain  in  the  world,  could  do  nothing  to 
feed  or  clothe  us,  without  those  wondrous  and  divine 
germs,  those  words  of  God,  that  by  a  mysterious  organi 
zation  unfold  themselves  from  specks  of  darkness  into 
plumes  of  beauteous  vegetation — into  gorgeous  flowers 
and  lustrous  fruits,  spicy  shrubs  and  mighty  forests — 
in  every  form  pleasant  to  see,  and  every  flavor  goodly  to 
taste,  and  every  medicine  potent  to  heal,  and  every  les- 


97 


son  significant  to  read  and  saving  to  learn,  because  it  is 
the  Word  of  God  in  his  own  great  print. 

Let  God's  Word  in  our  faculties, — let  his  Word  in 
his  Scriptures,  have  equal  freedom  with  his  Word  in  na 
ture  !  Let  them  all  have  free  course,  and  he  glorified. 
He  will  see  to  it  that  every  seed  produces  its  own  kind, 
and  that  his  Word,  while  it  shall  never  cease  to  grow, 
shall  never  outgrow  the  intention  of  him  that  spake  and 
it  was  done,  that  commanded  and  it  stood  fast. 

MAY  9,  1858. 


SERMON  VII. 

PRIVATE  INTERPRETATION. 

"  Knowing  this  first,  that  no  prophecy  of  the  Scriptures  is  of  any  private 
interpretation ;  for  the  prophecy  came  not  in  old  time  hy  the  will  of 
man ;  but  holy  men  of  God  spake  as  they  were  moved  by  the  Holy 
Ghost."— 2  PETKR  i.  20,  21. 

PROPHECY  has  two  offices  and  signs :  first,  the 
foretelling  of  future  events  ;  second,  the  outspeak 
ing  of  forgotten,  neglected,  or  unknown  truths.  In 
this  it  corresponds  with  inspiration,  which  has  a  two 
fold  character,  in  that  it  communicates,  first,  a  knowl 
edge  not  otherwise  possessed  or  attainable  by  its  sub 
ject,  and  second,  in  that  it  communicates  a  spirit  far  above 
the  level  of  the  prevailing  spirit  of  an  age  or  neighbor 
hood.  Inspiration,  religiously  considered,'  contemplated 
as  part  and  parcel  of  revealed  religion,  must  have  both 
these  attributes — a  knowledge  beyond  the  times,  and 
not  possible  on  any  other  theory  than  that  of  special 
illumination  ;  and  a  spirit  which  is  absolute  in  purity 
and  truth.  In  this  respect,  it  is  distinguished  from  the 
inspiration  of  genius,  the  poetic,  literary,  artistic  inspi 
ration,  which,  in  its  purity,  and  truth,  and  be'auty,  we 
feel  to  be  truly  divine  and  immortal.  We  have  no 


PRIVATE    INTERPRETATION.  99 

need  to  disparage  that  inspiration,  or  to  say  that  it  is 
not  from  God,  the  creator,  the  author  of  all  genius,  the 
fountain  of  all  beauty,  and  the  original  of  all  truth. 
But  we  must  and  may  say,  that  it  is  positively  and  de- 
finahly  distinguished  from  religious  inspiration,  in  that 
while  one  depends  upon  felicitous  organization,  propi 
tious  circumstances,  and  is  the  natural  development  of 
-the  original  powers  of  its  subject,  the  other  is  independ 
ent  of  these  circumstances — often  in  direct  antagonism 
to  them — and  is  the  result  of  a  power  external  to  its 
subject,  which  uses  him  as  its  instrument  and  organ. 
It  is  not  necessary  to  the  completeness  of  this  idea  to 
accept  such  vulgar  and  demeaning  notions  of  inspira 
tion  as  imagine  its  subject  to  be  acted  upon  by  God,  as 
a  pen  is  acted  upon  by  its  holder,  and  which,  in  the 
modern  necromancy,  present  us  with  individuals  pos 
sessed  as  by  devils — speaking,  acting,  knowing,  they 
cannot  tell  by  what  power  external  to  themselves.  In 
spiration,  in  its  scriptural  form,  does  not  use  human 
beings  as  if  they  were  machines.  When  God  used  fig- 
trees,  or  loaves  of  bread,  or  dead  bodies,  or  swine,  to  il 
lustrate  his  power,  he  made  fig-trees  act  like  fig-trees, 
loaves  like  loaves,  swine  like  swine.  He  used  machines 
as  machines  ;  but  when  he  used  men,  he  used  them  as 
men  ;  and  if  he  inspired  them,  they  became  inspired 
men,  not  inspired  machines.  He  inspired  their  souls — 
their  whole  manhood — not  their  memory,  nor  their  fin 
gers,  nor  their  toes.  Of  course,  their  inspiration  then 
became  in  a  manner  subject  to  their  human  attributes, 
suffered  their  limitations,  but  it  also  had  their  intelli 
gence,  their  sanity,  their  self-consciousness,  connected 
with  it ;  and  usually,  instead  of  making  them  eccen- 


100  THE    RE- ADJUSTMENT    OF    FAITH. 

trie,  crazy,  odd,  unintelligible,  just  in  proportion  to  the 
degree  of  it  they  possessed,  did  they  become  calm, 
wise,  intelligible,  sensible,  and  universal. 

The  ordinary  popular  view  of  religious " inspiration, 
which  makes  man  the  mere  tool  or  pipe  of  the  Al 
mighty,  with  all  its  mechanical  defects,  is  truer  to  the 
reality  of  the  case  than  the  so-called  advanced  view, 
which  confounds  religious  inspiration  with  the  posses 
sion  of  superior  natural  insight  and  purer  gifts  of  mind 
and  heart.  The  man  who  sees  no  difference  in  kind 
between  the  inspiration  of  Paul  and  the  inspiration  of 
Milton,  because  they  both  agree  in  possessing  souls 
vastly  elevated  above  the  common  herd,  ought  to  be 
consistent  with  himself,  and  pronounce  Milton  greatly 
Paul's  superior.  Milton  was  utterly  incapable  of  Paul's 
mixed  metaphors  and  offences  against  taste  and  pro 
priety  ;  was  possibly  his  superior  in  mere  intellectual 
faculties,  in  poetic  imagination,  and  general  culture  ; 
and  in  power  as  an  exact  reasoner.  Perhaps,  in  general 
elevation  of  mind,  in  rigor  of  conscience,  nay^  in  moral 
and  spiritual  excellence,  he  may  have  been  his  peer. 
But  Milton  was  not  marked  out,  selected,  and  used  by 
God,  as  the  organ  and  instrument  of  a  positive  revela 
tion — as  the  missionary  and  founder,  under  his  master, 
of  the  Christian  Church — and  he  did  not  possess  inspi 
ration  in  the  sense  in  which  Paul  possessed  it,  in  the 
least  degree.  Paul  had,  in  connection  with  his  super 
natural  knowledge  and  impulses,  something  of  Milton's 
inspiration  also,  though  to  no  such  high  degree  ;  but 
Milton  had  nothing  of  Paul's  ;  and  the  consequence  is, 
that  while  Paul's  writings  have  entered  into  and  be 
come  a  part  of  the  religious  life  and  sacred  study  of  the 


PRIVATE    INTERPRETATION.  101 

whole  world,  and  will  continue  for  ages  the  revered  de 
pository  of  ever- fresh  wisdom  and  help  ;  Milton's  works 
— great,  glorious,  immortal  as  his  fame  is — are  confined 
to  the  appreciation  and  use  of  a  select  class,  and  belong 
to  the  delights,  not  to  the  uses,  of  the  world  ;  are  the 
luxury,  hut  not  the  hread,  nor  the  medicine,  of  men. 

Prophecy  is  another  name  for  inspiration,  and  what 
is  true  of  inspiration  is  true  of  prophecy.  The  sacred 
writings,  both  old  and  new,  contain  literal  predic 
tions  of  coming  events — predictions  which  natural  sa 
gacity  could  not  have  surmised  or  guessed.  But 
these  predictions  were  made  by  men  who,  to  the  super 
natural  knowledge  of  the  future,  added  as  extraordinary 
a  moral  and  spiritual  elevation  above  their  times.  And, 
now,  men  of  extraordinary  moral  and  spiritual  elevation 
venture  to  call  themselves  prophets,  when  they  are 
wholly  without  the  other  quality  or  sign  of  their  office — 
the  power  of  predicting  future  events.  It  is  only  when 
these  two  distinct  attributes  meet,  that  we  should  grant 
the  name  or  authority  of  prophet  ;  and  I  venture  to 
affirm  that  they  never  have  met,  except  in  connection 
with  the  positive  revelations  of  the  Jewish  and  Chris 
tian  Church.  I  know  very  well  the  pretensions  made 
by  or  for  various  seers,  of  whom  Swedenborg  is  the 
most  respectable.  But,  when  the  human  race,  in  its 
deliberative  and  mature  judgment,  acting  with  the  grav 
itating  power  of  its  own  instincts  of  need  and  truth,  re 
jects  any  claim  to  religious  inspiration,  be  sure  that 
no  clique  of  eccentric,  or  excellent,  or  ingenious  persons, 
however  persistent,  will  be  able  to  make  that  claim 
good. 

And  this  brings  us  back  to  the  text,  and  the  sig- 


102  THE    RE-ADJUSTMENT    OF    FAITH. 

nificant  description  it  furnishes  of  the  trae  method  and 
test  of  prophecy.  "  Knowing/'  says  the  Apostle  Peter, 
"  this  first,  that  no  prophecy  of  the  Scriptures  is  of  any 
private  interpretation  ;  for  the  prophecy  came  not  in 
old  time  by  the  will  of  man  ;  but  holy  men  of  God 
spake  as  they  were  moved  by  the  Holy  Ghost." 

Does  not  the  text  seem  to  place  us  on  Koman 
Catholic  ground  ?  We  have  heard,  from  our  youth,  a 
great  deal  of  the  right  of  private  judgment.  It  was 
the  battle-cry  of  the  Kefonnation  :  it  is  the  fortress  of 
Protestantism.  The  right  to  read  and  judge  the  Holy 
Scriptures,  each  man  for  himself — what  so  distinctive, 
what  so  precious  to  our  liberal  Christianity  ?  And  is  it 
an  attack  upon  this  privilege  that  Peter  makes  in  the 
text  ?  Are  we  to  call  in  synods,  consistories,  creeds, 
churches,  popes,  to  tell  us  what  we  may  believe  and 
what  we  must  reject  ?  what  is  the  true  and  what  the 
erroneous  interpretation  of  every  prophecy  of  the  Scrip 
tures — prophecy  here  having  both  senses  of  prediction 
and  lofty  teaching  ?  Were  it  so,  Protestantism  should 
at  once  enter  the  confessional,  and  ask,  upon  her  knees, 
absolution  from  her  sins  ;  for  she  has  exercised  the 
right  of  private  judgment  more  and  more,  and  clearly 
intends  to  maintain  it.  She  is  not  only  heretical,  but 
contumacious,  if  private  judgment  be  an  apostolic  for- 
biddance. 

I  need  hardly  tell  you,  however,  that  the  right  of 
individual  search  into  the  meaning  of  the  whole  matter 
and  teaching  of  the  Scriptures,  is  not  only  a  right  de 
manded  by  our  self-respect,  but  commanded  by  the  Old 
and  New  Testaments  themselves,  in  many  passages. 
"  For  whatsoever  things  were  written  aforetime  were 


PRIVATE   INTERPRETATION.  103 

written  for  our  learning,  that  we,  through  patience  and 
comfort  of  the  Scriptures,  might  have  hope." l  "  Con 
tinue  thou  in  the  things  which  thou  hast  learned  and 
hast  been  assured  of,  knowing  of  whom  thou  hast 
learned  them,  and  that  from  a  child  thou  hast  known 
the  holy  Scriptures,  which  are  able  to  make  thee  wise 
unto  salvation,  through  faith  which  is  in  Christ  Je 
sus."  2  "  But  whoso  looketh  into  the  perfect  law  of 
liberty,  and  continueth  therein,  he  being  not  a  forgetful 
hearer,  but  a  doer  of  the  work,  this  man  shall  be  blessed 
in  his  deed/' 3  "  Search  the  Scriptures  ;  for  in  them  ye 
think  ye  have  eternal  life,  and  they  are  they  which  tes 
tify  of  me." 4  What  does  Paul  say  of  the  Bereans  ? 
"  These  were  more  noble  than  those  in  Thessalonica,  in 
that  they  received  the  word  with  all  readiness  of  mind, 
and  searched  the  Scriptures  daily,  whether  those  things 
were  so." 5  "  Yea,  and  why  even  of  yourselves  judge 
ye  not  what  is  right  ?  " 6  "  Let  the  prophets  speak 
two  or  three,  and  let  the  other  judge." 7 

It  is  not  at  all  against  the  right  or  duty  of  the  pri 
vate  soul  to  search  and  try  the  Scriptures,  and  come  to 
.such  conclusions  as  earnest  and  accurate  investigation 
warrant,  that  the  apostle  is  speaking  in  the  text.  It 
is  not  as  a  rebuff  to'  inquiry,  but  as  a  help  to  it,  that 
he  sets  up  his  most  important  principle.  What  he 
teaches  is  not  that  private  men  should  not  interpret 
the  Scriptures,  but  that  they  should  not  put  private 
interpretations  upon  them,  if  they  expect  to  understand 
them.  He  means  to  say,  that  the  Scriptures  contain  a 
religion  for  the  public,  for  all  men,  as  well  as  for  each 

1  Rom.  xv.  4.  2  2  Timothy  iii.  14,  15.  3  James  i.  25. 

4  John  v.  39.       °  Acts  xvii.  11.       e  Luke  xii.  57.       7  1  Cor.  xiv.  29. 


104  THE    RE- ADJUSTMENT    OF    FAITH. 

man  ;  that  they  were  not  written  by  private  men,  in 
the  indulgence  of  caprices  and  eccentricities  of  their 
own;  but  inspired  by  God,  written  by  holy  men  of 
old,  who  spake  as  they  were  moved  by  the  Holy 
Spirit — written  in  accordance  with  a  plan,  in  sub 
jection  to  a  design,  under  the  animation  of  a  spirit, 
which  contemplated  the  common,  public,  universal 
wants  of  humanity  ;  not  intended  for  local,  national, 
denominational,  family,  individual  appropriation ;  nor 
to  be  warped  and  moulded,  pieced  and  pared,  mod 
ified  and  adapted  to  temporary,  partial,  local  views 
and  feelings  ;  used  to  carry  out  personal  ends  and  aims, 
to  elevate  particular  persons,  to  indorse  private  plans, 
or  'to  give  way  before  the  weaknesses,  the  peculiarities, 
the  special  necessities  of  this  or  that  individual ;  but  to 
be  received  by  each,  and  understood  by  each,  in  their 
absolute,  universal,  impersonal,  impartial,  unchangeable 
character.  The  private  interpretation  of  the  Scriptures, 
which  Peter  denounces*  and  forbids,  is  like  that  inter 
pretation  which,  in  the  Koman  Church,  would  furnish 
a  selection  for  the  use  of  the  laity,  lest  they  should  dis 
cover  how  little  countenance  the  common  and  general 
teachings  of  the  Bible  give  to  the  peculiarities  of  that 
Church  ;  or  that  interpretation  which  would,  in  the 
Episcopal  Church,  conceal  the  fact,  that  in  the 
apostolic  age  all  ministers  were  bishops  ;  or,  in  the 
Baptist  Church,  would  have  a  new  translation  of  the 
Bible  for  the  sole  purpose  of  mentioning  the  private  in 
terpretation  of  that  sect,  touching  the  subjects  and  mode 
of  baptism  ;  or  of  the  teachers  of  the  Tri-personality, 
who  would  maintain  a  corrupt  text,  and  resist  all  new 
translations,  because  sure  to  be  unfavorable  to  that  un- 


PKIVATE   INTERPRETATION.  105 

scriptural  dogma  ;  or  like  those  interpretations  of  Uni 
tarian  rationalists,  who,  because  they  dislike  miracles 
and  supernaturalism,  would  make  it  out  that  the  apos 
tles  themselves  did  not  believe  in  them.  Any  inter 
pretation  of  Scripture  is  a  private  interpretation,  which 
is  adopted  and  maintained  to  shield  a  private  interest, 
whether  the  slaveholding  divine  proves  the  identity  of 
Hebrew  serfdom  with  South  Carolina  negro-holding ; 
or  the  aristocratic  governments  of  Europe  keep  the 
people  down,  in  favor  of  the  honor  of  all  kings  and  the 
sanctity  of  all  anointed  brows,  with  texts  of  Scripture  ;  or 
the  judges  of  Salem  yield  to  popular  outcry  against 
miserable  women,  because  of  Saul's  trouble  with  the 
witch  of  Endor  ;  or,  when  any  ingenuity,  or  learning, 
or  position  is  abused  in  twisting  the  universal,  common, 
and  ever-applicable  general  sense  of  the  Bible  into 
apologies,  warrants,  and  excuses  for  private  and  wrong 
ends,  or  personal  and  partial  objects. 

The  doctrine  of  Peter,  that  no  prophecy  of  the 
Scriptures — meaning,  I  repeat,  both  prediction  and  in 
struction — is  of  any  private  interpretation,  is  admirably 
accounted  for  by  him  in  the  text ;  for  he  says,  the 
prophecy  came  not  in  old  time  by  the  will  of  man,  but 
holy  men  of  God  spake  as  they  were  moved  by  the 
Holy  Ghost.  The  will  of  man  is  not  the  source  of  the 
religious  truth  set  forth  in  the  Scriptures  ;  nor,  if  one 
might  say  it  without  irreverence,  even  the  will  of  God. 
There  is  something  deeper  than  will.  Will,  by  its  es 
sence,  is  something  free  ;  and  if  free,  then  liable  to 
change,  carrying  in  it  the  possibilities  of  arbitrariness 
or  caprice,  the  limitations  and  characteristics  of  per 
sonal  existence.  But  the  Holy  Spirit,  the  eternal  truth, 


106  THE    RE-ADJUSTMENT   OF    FAITH. 

the  law  which  governs  God's  nature  as  well  as  man's,  is 
not  free  ;  it  is  fixed  ;  it  is  not  arbitrary,  but  absolute. 
It  cannot  be  strengthened  by  will,  nor  weakened  by 
want  of  it.  It  carries  its  own  authority  in  itself,  and 
needs  no  warrant  and  no  argument  to  maintain  it.  It 
is  the  ground  of  a  common  rational  and  moral  nature, 
shared  by  man  with  God,  that  makes  any  intercourse 
between  them  practicable,  renders  revelation  possible, 
and  forms  the  basis  of  all  religious  obligations  and 
hopes.  When  the  Holy  Ghost  speaks,  it  must  speak 
in  the  only  language  common  to  God  and  men.  It 
must  speak  in  terms  of  reason  and  conscience,  of  the 
impersonal  reason  and  the  impersonal  or  public  con 
science.  If  any  thing  pretends  to  come  from  God, 
which  is  irrational,  immoral,  or  merely  of  private  and 
temporary  importance,  we  pronounce  the  pretension 
false.  And  if  any  thing  which  has  come  from  God  is 
interpreted  in  an  irrational,  immoral,  private,  and  local 
manner,  we  pronounce  the  interpretation  false  and 
fleeting. 

Oftentimes,  it  is  true,  absolute  truths  and  perma 
nent  principles  are  draped  by  revelation  in  decaying 
costumes  and  perishable  colors,  precisely  as  the  eternal 
moral  law  of  the  Jewish  Scriptures  was  hidden  in  the 
ritual  of  the  Hebrew  people  ;  and  it  then  becomes  a 
difficult  work — a  work  of  time  and  experience — to  sep 
arate  the  permanent  from  the  perishing,  the  precious 
jewel  from  its  worthless  setting.  Indeed,  it  was  against 
the  Jewish  prejudice  of  private  interpretation,  the  ob 
stinate  pride  of  birth  and  race,  which  chose  to  consider 
the  local  and  temporary  wrappages  of  universal  and 
eternal  truths  as  essential  parts  of  their  religion,  and  so 


PRIVATE    INTERPRETATION.  107 

to  reject  Him  who  came  to  publish  (to  make  public 
and  universal)  their  hitherto  private,  because  merely 
national,  religion,  that  Peter  first  used  the  language  of 
the  text.  We  need  not  wonder  that  the  glorious  uni 
versality  of  the  moral  law,  the  sublime  doctrine  of  the 
unity  of  God,  the  absolute  truth  and  permanent  reality 
of  the  Mosaic  revelation,  gave  it  power  to  uphold  and 
make  authoritative  the  external  staging  and  mere  me 
chanical  apparatus  of  the  Jewish  local  code  and  ritual ; 
nor  need  we  deny  the  providential,  and,  so  far  as 
the  Jews  were  concerned,  the  authoritative,  character 
of  their  national  law.  But  it  is  perfectly  easy  now  to 
distinguish  what  was  designed  to  come  down,  from  that 
which  was  designed  merely  to  bring  it  down  ;  the  un 
changing  message  from  the  accidental  messenger  ;  the 
living  water  from  the  muddy  channel ;  the  public  and 
universal  truth  in  the  Old  Testament,  from  the  national 
and  limited  religion  of  the  Jews. 

"  Private  interpretation,"  as  thus  illustrated,  not  only 
of  the  Scriptures,  but  of  all  true  and  sacred  and  worthy 
things,  is  forbidden,  not  only  by  God's  own  word,  but 
equally  by  the  general  constitution,  the  social  and  af- 
fectional  nature  of  man,  his  sympathetic,  and  even  his 
aesthetic,  connection  with  his  race  and  with  his  Creator, 
It  is  favored  only  and  always  by  human  selfishness, 
blind  passion,  egotism,  and  sensuality.  See  how  the 
great  significance  of  nature,  its  commonwealth  of 
truth,  beauty,  and  happiness,  meant  to  lie  open  to  the 
use,  enjoyment,  and  instruction  of  all  men,  and  to  give 
breadth,  purity,  disinterestedness,  and  elevation  to  their 
whole  being — see  how  this  great  letter-book  of  God  is 
spoiled  by  private  interpretation.  One  set  of  divines, 


108  THE    RE-ADJUSTMENT    OF    FAITH. 

to  carry  out  and  support  their  private  interpretation  of 
the  Scriptures — the  interpretation  which  those  private 
scholars,  St.  Augustine  and  John  Calvin,  gave  to  them — 
must  have  a  private  interpretation  of  nature,  according 
to  which  they  declare  it  a  world  in  ruins,  manifestly 
lapsed  from  its  original  beauty,  a  world  in  which 
neither  the  mineral,  vegetable,  nor  animal  kingdoms 
are  as  God  made  them,  but  alL  awry  and  askew,  the 
crust  of  the  earth  a  jumble,  the  woods  and  fields,  nay, 
the  very  sky  itself,  a  snarl  of  discordant  and  perverted 
elements  !  Is  this  what  the  common  heart  proclaims  ? 
Is  this  what  David  felt  when  he  exclaimed,  "  When 
I  consider  thy  heavens,  the  work  of  thy  fingers,  the 
moon  and  stars  which  thou  hast  ordained,  what  is 
man  that  thou  art  mindful  of  him,  and  the  son  of 
man  that  thou  visitest  him  ?  "  Or  Christ,  when  he- 
taught,  "  Behold  the  fowls  of  the  air,  for  they  sow  not, 
neither  do  they  reap,  nor  gather  into  barns  ;  yet  your 
heavenly  Father  feedeth  them.  Consider  the  lilies  of 
the  field  how  they  grow  ;  they  toil  not,  neither  do  they 
spin,  and  yet  I  say  unto  you  that  Solomon,  in  all  his 
glory,  was  not  arrayed  like  one  of  these."  Or  Paul, 
when  he  said,  "  For  the  invisible  things  of  him,  from 
the  creation  of  the  world,  are  clearly  seen,  being  un 
derstood  by  the  things  that  are  made,  even  his  eternal 
power  and  godhead  ;  so  that  they  are  without  excuse, 
because  that  when  they  knew  God  they  glorified  him 
not  as  God,  neither  were  thankful."  Is  that  what 
every  sensitive  child,  every  poet,  nay,  at  his  best  and 
happiest  hours,  every  human  heart  has  felt  about  the 
beauty  and  glory  and  divinity  of  the  external  world  ? 


PRIVATE    INTERPRETATION.  109 

It  is  mere  private  interpretation  that  introduces  these 
vain  imaginations.  And  it  is  equally  private  inter 
pretation  which  represents  human  nature  as  essen 
tially  corrupt,  disordered,  and  perverted.  No  mother 
thinks  it  of  her  child  ;  no  lover  of  his  mistress  ;  no 
man  of  his  friend.  The  imperfections,  the  limitations, 
the  inexperience,  the  weakness,  the  faults  of  human 
character,  those  who  love  human  nature  best,  are 
readiest  to  see  and  feel ;  and  they  see  them  with 
sympathy,  compassion  and  tenderness.  They  are  not 
anxious  to  hide  them  from  God  himself.  And,  blessed 
testimony  that  it  is,  we  cannot  find  a  word  to  express 
all  that  is  sweet  and  noble,  unselfish  and  tender,  in  our 
relations  with  our  fellow- beings — a  word  the  very  use 
of  which_is  itself  worth  a  thousand  of  the  arguments  of 
private  interpreters,  who  demean  and  disparage  our 
nature  —  we  cannot  find  a  word  fitly  to  describe  the 
highest  duties  arid  the  greatest  privileges,  and  the 
most  common  properties  of  our  being,  except  the  very 
word  that  names  us — I  mean,  the  word  humanity. 
Look  further  at  the  perversity  of  private  interpretation 
of  the  Scriptures — of  the  Scriptures  alike  written  on 
parchment  and  in  the  human  heart,  both  inspired, 
though,  in  different  ways,  as  we  have  seen.  Here  is 
this  great  and  glorious  world  about  us  ;  this  wide  and 
magnificent  world  ;  this  green  and  teeming  earth,  with 
all  the  wealth  of  our  culture  added  to  the  products  of 
its  spontaneous  fertility,  the  beauty  which  Grod  the  first 
shaper,  and  man  his  agent  and  the  invited  continuer 
of  his  work,  have  given  to  it !  To  how  much  perverse 
private  interpretation  is  this  common  possession  and 


110  THE    RE-ADJUSTMENT    OF    FAITH. 

inheritance  subject  !  How  greedy  the  scramble,  how 
incessant  the  ingenuity  and  toil  to  seize  upon,  fence  in, 
and  appropriate  as  much  as  possible  of  this  free  terri 
tory  !  How  common  the  delusion  that  private  prop 
erty  in  the  planet,  the  exclusive  ownership  of  a  bit  of 
the  world,  and  a  large  bit,  too,  is  the  secret  of  its  best 
or  only  enjoyment  !  Far  be  it  from  me  to  spurn  the 
very  idea  of  property.  It  would  be  to  deny  the  very 
principle  I  am  proceeding  upon  ;  for  property  and  the 
sense  of  it  is  universal,  therefore  legitimate  and  true — a 
Scripture.  But  it  is  not  the  only,  nor  the  whole,  nor 
th"  most  important  truth,  mid  immensely  remote  from 
being  the  beatifying  truth,  It  is  a  necessity,  a  condi 
tion  of  social  existence,  and  therefore  to  be  submitted 
to.  But  he  who  keeps  his  soul  freest  from  that  lust, 
least  open  to  its  fascinations  and  delusions,  who  is  least 
anxious  to  own  and  appropriate  the  planet,  or  any  part 
of  its  product,  beyond  a  reasonable  defence  against  de 
pendence,  and  a  reasonable  provision  against  want,  is 
the  richest  man  !  Private  property  !  there  is  not  a 
greater  delusion  in  the  world  than  that  which  ascribes 
any  considerable  part  of  the  happiness  of  life  to  the 
things  that  a  man  possesseth  in  his  exclusive  right. 

And  equally  fatal  is  that  private  interpretation  of 
the  eternal  Scripture,  written  in  our  spiritual  constitu 
tion,  which  makes  men  think  themselves  wise  in  their 
own  thoughts,  strong  in  themselves,  independent  of 
their  race  and  their  God.  Man  is  really  wise,  only  as 
he  is  in  communion  with  his  race,  and  with  his  Saviour 
and  his  Creator.  Intellectually,  those  who  study 
originality  in  the  .sense  of  peculiarity  and  private  un- 


PRIVATE    INTERPRETATION.  Ill 

likeness  of  opinions,  are  eccentrics — comets,  not  planets. 
The  true  originality  of  mind  is  that  which  goes  back 
to  the  origin,  to  the  divine  fountain,  the  source  of  all 
fresh  thoughts,  and  which  exhibits  thoughts  not  new 
in  themselves,  but  only  new  in  the  freshness  of  their 
pristine  lustre.  There  is  nothing  less  vulgar  than  the 
thoughts  which  are  common  to  all  men.  Common 
sense  is  not  the  sense  which  is  common,  but  the  sense 
which  is  in  common — the  sense  which,  once  distinctly 
set  forth,  is  most  commonly  seen  and  felt  to  be  sense. 
Common  sense  !  it  is  to  all  other  sense  what  the  ocean 
is  to  the  lakes  and  ponds  :  the  medium  of  intercourse, 
the  source  of  health  and  purity,  the  immense  reservoir 
of  practical  and  life-directing  wisdom.  The  Lucullus, 
who  spends  a  fortune  on  his  private  fish-pond,  might  as 
well  think  to  substitute  it  for  the  Atlantic,  as  the  dainty 
doater  on  his  ingenious  notions  think  to  make  them 
take  the  place  of  the  great  common  thoughts  that  en 
rich  and  sustain  the  intellect  and  sanity  of  the  world. 

And  what  is  true  of  thought  is  true  of  feeling. 
Private  interpretation  is  the  bane  of  the  heart.  Nar 
row  sympathies,  exclusive  tastes,  a  self-humoring,  self- 
coaxing  spirit,  how  it  belittles  and  impoverishes  life  ! 
The  man  who  mistakes  himself  for  his  race,  his  family 
for  God's  family  ;  who  interprets  all  claims  and  duties 
by  their  relation  to  his  own  private  feelings  or  domestic 
interests — how  he  shuts  himself  out  of  the  kingdom  of 
humanity — how  poor  the  bargain  he  drives  with  his 
race  !  This  is  his  proposition  :  "  If  you  will  not  ask 
me  to  love  you,  I  will  not  ask  you  to  love  me  ! "  As  if 
the  flower  should  say  to  the  sun,  if  you  will  not  expect 


112  THE    RE- ADJUSTMENT    OF    FAITH. 

me  to  shine  on  you,  I  will  excuse  you  from  shining  on 
me  !  What  can  a  man  do  for  the  world,  compared 
with  what  the  world  can  do  for  him  ?  What  can  a 
man  give,  compared  with  what  he  can  receive  ?  His 
own  single  heart  can  make  all  hearts  pay  it  tribute. 
It  is  indeed  more  blessed  to  give  than  to  receive  ;  to 
love  than  to  be  loved  ;  to  love  God,  than  to  have  him 
love  us  ;  to  love  man,  than  to  have  all  men  loving  us. 
But  the  rivulet  cannot  pour  into  the  sea  more  than  it 
receives  from  the  clouds,  nor  they,  more  than  they  drew 
from  the  ocean.  Arid  the  heart  that  would  love  much, 
must  have  a  universal  sympathy,  must  draw  in  a  mighty 
and  ceaseless  love  from  all  within  its  reach. 

Ah  !  my  brethren,  suffer  yourselves  to  be  moved  by 
the  Holy  Ghost.  It  is  no  spectre  that  will  steal  upon 
you  in  the  dark  and  whisper  riddles,  but  a  bright,  glad 
spirit,  clothed  in  light,  that  pronounces  universal  truths 
in  everywhere  intelligible  language.  The  Holy  Spirit 
is  the  friend  and  ally  of  reason  ;  for  reason  came  from 
the  same  fountain.  It  is  the  elder  sister  of  conscience. 
It  is  the  original  of  humanity.  It  is  always  generous, 
rational,  wide,  common  in  its  precepts — not  sectarian, 
provincial,  temporary — never  odd,  wild,  fitful.  It  is 
calm,  clear,  solid,  like  the  crystal  throne  of  God.  It 
will  rebuke  all  your  egotisms  and  self-seeking,  your 
prejudices  and  partialities.  In  its  light  you  shall  read 
the  Scriptures  into  the  sweetest  and  noblest  utterances 
of  immortal  truth  ;  you  shall  understand  Jesus  Christ 
as  the  liberator  of  conscience,  the  emancipator  of  mind, 
the  Saviour  of  the  heart.  God,  the  all-in-all,  shall  prove 
to  be,  not  your  Father  only,  but  the  Father,  the  All- 


PRIVATE    INTERPRETATION.  113 

father,  as  the  Germans  tenderly  call  him.  You  shall 
not  any  longer,  see  men  as  rich  and  poor,  black  and 
white,  learned  and  ignorant,  hut  as  members  one  of  an 
other,  brethren,  children  of  Grod.  You  shall  not  be 
chained  and  imprisoned  in  private  interpretations  of 
any  kind,  but  have  the  freedom  of  universal  truth  and 
universal  goodness  and  universal  love,  for  your  joy  and 
glory  and  habitation  forever. 

FEBRUARY  13,  1859 


SERMON  VIII 

DOCILITY. 

'  Whosoever,  therefore,  shall  humble  himself  as  this  little  child,  the  same 

is  greatest  in  the  kingdom  of  heaven." — MATTHEW  xviii.  4. 
"  Take  heed  that  ye  despise  not  one  of  these  little   ones  :  for  I  say  unto 
^ou,  that  in  heaven  their  angels  do  always  hehold  the  face  of  my 
Father  which  is  in  heaven." — MATTHEW  xviii.  10. 

THE  disciples  had  been  asking  Jesus,  who  was  the 
greatest  in  the  kingdom  of  heaven.  He,  anxious  to 
reprove  in  them  those  first  risings  of  ambition  and 
jealousy  which  prompted  the  inquiry,  took  a  little 
child  and  placed  him  in  the  midst  of  them,  and  re 
plied,  "  Whosoever  shall  humble  himself  as  this  little 
child,  the  same  is  greatest  in  the  kingdom  of  heaven." 
The  difference  between  the  kingdom  he  came  to 
establish  in  men's  hearts,  in  which  the  virtues  and 
graces  are  the  only  nobles,  and  that  kingdom  which 
the  Jews  in  general  sighed  for,  and  in  which  they 
looked  to  be  princes,  was  such  that  he  could  not  hope 
for  any  understanding  of  it  on  the  part'of  those  who 
did  not  place  themselves  before  his  instructions  in  the 
docile  attitude  of  children.  It  was  indeed  the  humble 
origin  and  position  of  the  first  disciples,  a  lowliness  of 


DOCILITY.  115 

state  which  had  done  little  to  encourage  the  conceit  of 
knowledge,  or  to  stimulate  the  pride  of  opinion,  which 
made  them  alone  open  to  the  approaches  of  the  Gos 
pel.  Well  was  it  asked,  Have  any  of  the  Scribes  and 
Pharisees  believed  in  him  ?  Certainly  not.  They 
were  all  too  deeply  committed  to  prevailing  systems 
of  opinion,  and  too  closely  interwoven  with  the  web  of 
ecclesiastical  authority  and  prejudice,  to  be  able  even 
to  contemplate  the  possibility  of  any  truth  in  Christ's 
teachings.  Therefore  he  was  left  to  the  grown-up 
children  of  the  day  for  his  earliest  and  only  teachable 
followers,  to  the  plain  and  simple  day-laborers,  the 
fishermen  and  tax-gatherers,  the  common  people,  who 
hedrd  him  gladly.  They  did  not  know  enough,  per 
haps,  to  mark  the  inconsistency  between  what  he 
taught  and  what  was  taught  in  the  synagogue  ;  and 
with  their  simple  souls  bound  in  the  cords  of  no  social 
or  scholastic  necessity,  they  only  knew  that  it  sounded 
true  and  sweet,  and  moved  their  hearts  and  consciences, 
and  awakened  their  veneration  and  confidence,  as  noth 
ing  they  had  ever  before  heard  had  done.  It  must  be 
confessed,  my  brethren,  that  minds  and  hearts  like 
these  were  just  as  easy  to  mislead  as  to  guide  aright ; 
for  superstition  and  error  seek  their  disciples  in  the 
identical  places  where  truth  finds  her  best  followers. 
A  child's  mind,  by  its  very  openness  and  simplicity,  its 
irresisting  and  pliable  state,  like  a  virgin  soil,  is  equally 
prepared  to  receive  and  give  quick  growth  to  tares  and 
wheat,  truth  and  falsehood.  Doubtless  the  false 
Christs  had  obtained  their  followers  from  the  same 
class  of  persons — the  child-like,  uncommitted,  unoccu 
pied  minds  of  Judea — from  which  the  true  Christ  ob- 


116  THE   RE- ADJUSTMENT    OF    FAITH. 

tained  his.  But  this  proves  nothing  against  the  worth 
of  their  simplicity,  though  it  might  rightfully  weaken 
the  value  of  their  testimony,  considered  merely  in  the 
character  of  legal  evidence.  But  Christ  neither  asked 
nor  needed  such  evidence.  He  asked  and  needed  just 
what  he  found  in  them,  an  unresisting  medium,  through 
which  to  convey  his  truth,  a  yielding  clay  in  which  to 
stamp  his  image.  And  it  is  what  Christ  left  the  apos 
tles,  not  what  he  found  them  ;  not  their  faith  in  him, 
but  what  that  faith  did  for  them  ;  what  he  put  into 
their  minds  and  hearts,  and  rapidly  recreated  them  to 
be — those  strong-souled,  pure-hearted,  heroic,  heavenly- 
minded  men  they  became  after  two  or  three  years  of 
intercourse  with  him — able,  by  their  deeds  and  writings 
and  testimonies,  to  give  the  world  its  majestic  and 
lovely  and  authoritative  idea  of  the  Saviour — it  is  this 
that  makes  them  the  grand  and  permanent  witnesses 
of  Christianity. 

Christ's  followers  were  all,  or  mostly  all,  for  a  long 
time,  of  that  humble,  child-like  class,  whose  judgment 
is,  by  general  consent,  regarded  as  weak  ;  who,  by  their 
approbation  or  discipleship,  lend  no  authority  to  the 
opinions  they  adopt.  It  was  the  effect  their  adherence 
to  Christ  had  upon  their  characters,  the  sacrifices  it 
inspired,  the  good  sense  it  developed,  the  spirit  it  in 
fused,  the  elevation  it  communicated,  that  gradually 
made  their  testimony  so  valuable.  The  more  ignorant 
they  were,  the  wiser  it  proved  their  teacher,  when  they 
improved  so  rapidly  under  his  hands  ;  the  more  credu 
lous  and  excitable  their  hearts,  the  more  credible  the 
prophet  who  planted  such  unsuperstitious  and  rational 
opinions  only  in  their  all-believing  minds  ;  the  less  dis- 


DOCILITY.  117 

tinguished,  intelligent,  trained,  disciplined,  logical  they 
were,  the  more  of  all  these  must  he  have  been  who 
could  so  soon,  from  such  crude,  unfurnished  men,  have 
raised  up  a  band  of  truly  dignified  and  noble,  and  ven 
erable  followers.  And  this  has  always  been  the  evi 
dence  Christianity  has  sought  to  stand  on,  the  evidence 
of  its  fruits.  It  has  never,  from  the  first,  appealed  to 
cultivated,  scientific,  philosophical  minds,  and  begged 
their  examination,  scrutiny,  and  testimony  in  its  favor. 
But  it  has  appealed  to  the  changes  it  has  wrought,  the 
temper  it  has  communicated,  the  lives  and  characters 
it  has  produced,  wherever  it  has  been,  on  any  grounds, 
accepted  heartily  and  in  a  confiding  spirit.  No  candid 
person  will  deny  that  Christianity  has  for  the  most  part 
owed  its  triumphs  to  the  teachable  and  receiving  tem 
per  of  those  whose  power  to  judge  of  its  evidences  by 
scholarly  inquiry,  logical  tests,  and  historical  investiga 
tion,  was  weak  and  without  claim  to  respect.  But, 
in  this  particular,  it  is  on  a  level  with  all  other  great 
and  important  things.  The  practical  faith  of  the 
world,  in  all  the  truths  of  nature,  government,  econo 
my,  science,  rests  not  upon  logical  and  statable  foun 
dations,  but  upon  experience.  We  do  not  use  wheat, 
because  Licbig  has  discovered  just  how  much  gluten, 
farina,  starch,  sugar,  there  is  in  that  grain,  and  what  a 
wonderful  adaptation  it  has  to  the  human  constitution  ; 
nor  tea  and  coffee,  because  modern  science  has  found  a 
chemical  nourishment  for  the  brain  in  the  phosphates 
they  contain  ;  but  because  experience  has  proved 
wheat  the  most  wholesome  and  permanently  useful 
article  of  human  food,  and  tea  and  coffee  pleasant  and 
salutary  drinks.  We  do  not  navigate  by  the  stars, 


118  THE      RE-ADJUSTMENT    OF    FAITH. 

because  astronomers  have  proved  their  fixity  of  place, 
and  can  unfold  the  laws  of  the  stellar  system  ;  but  be 
cause  experience,  from  the  earliest  time,  made  them 
ihe  natural  and  necessary  and  reliable  guides  of  ocean 
travellers.  Theories  are  built  upon  experience  ;  and 
long  after  we  have  adopted  opinions,  customs  and 
beliefs,  scholars,  thinkers  and  theorists  come  in  to  tell 
us  lohy  we  have  adopted  them  ;  and  then  we  begin  to 
think  them  and  their  reasons  to  be  the  causes  or  foun 
dations  of  our  opinions  and  usages,  which,  in  fact,  pre 
ceded  them  and  their  evidences. 

The  Gospel,  as  a  religion,  asks  from  men,  who  hope 
to  profit  by  it,  the  same  childlike  spirit  now  it  did  in 
the  early  times.  It  appeals  no  more  to  the  inquisitive 
and  speculating,  the  logical  and  reasoning  faculties,  now 
than  then — not  because  the  finest  understandings,  the 
most  scientific  minds,  can  refute  it,  or  that  it  has  any 
thing  to  fear  from  them,  but  neither  has  it  any  thing 
to  hope  from  them.  We  make  a  great  mistake  when 
we  suppose  Christianity  to  be  on  trial,  or  that  God 
has  submitted  his  Gospel,  any  more  than  his  other  uni 
versal  gifts  and  mercies,  to  human  reason,  to  decide  for 
or  against  it.  He  planted  Christianity  in  the  moral 
world,  just  as  he  planted  wheat  in  the  natural,  to  grow, 
with  or  against  the  consent  of  men  ;  to  be  a  great  and 
unspeakable  blessing  to  those  accepting  it,  to  do  vast 
services  for  society,  to  cheer  and  save  men.  And  here 
it  is,  doing  its  work.  Skeptics  and  infidels  do  nothing 
to  overthrow  it  :  they  only  overthrow  themselves  by 
their  assaults  ;  philosophic  believers  and  learned  apolo 
gists  do  nothing  to  uphold  it :  they  merely  satisfy  their 
own  minds,  and  may  satisfy  the  minds  of  a  few  others, 


DOCILITY.  119 

"by  their  investigations.  But  we  might  just  as  well  think 
the  stars  shone  by  the  permission  of  astronomers,  or  spring 
came  by  leave  of  the  almanac,  or  conjugal  and  family 
life  existed  by  social  contrivance,  or  poetry  were  a  trick 
of  fanciful  scholars,  or  truth  the  result  of  an  agree 
ment  among  philosophers,  as  to  think  religion,  and  the 
Christian  religion,  a  conclusion  of  learned  theologians 
and  writers  on  evidences,  and  the  best  wisdom  to  which 
religious  thinkers  had  arrived.  Christianity  came  into 
the  world  by  nobody's  leave,  and  it  stays  here  by  no 
body's  leave.  It  sprang  up  a  living  fountain,  by  the 
Word  of  God,  out  of  the  heart  of  Christ ;  and  it  has 
flowed  on  a  river  by  its  own  divine  affluence,  fed  from 
the  will  and  the  love  and  the  wisdom  of  God.  There 
is,  indeed,  not  only  no  harm,  but  great  good,  in  exam 
ining  its  origin,  and  early  circumstances,  the  genuineness 
of  its  records,  the  secondary  causes  of  its  spread  ;  but 
all  such  examinations,  when  successful  and  favorable, 
have  been  made  by  men  already  believers  in  it — by  those 
who  had  felt  its  power  and  loved  its  sacred  influence. 
An  impartial,  unprejudiced  explorer  of  its  truth  never 
existed,  and  never  could  exist.  The  man  who  could 
say  it  was  a  matter  of  absolute  indifference  to  him 
whether  Christ  were  an  impostor  or  a  prophet,  whether 
the  Gospel  were  true  or  false,  would  be  a  man  not  to 
be  believed,  or,  at  any  rate,  not  to  be  trusted  with  such 
an  inquiry.  It  is  impossible,  in  respect  to  matters  in 
timately  connected  with  the  affections  and  the  moral 
and  spiritual  nature,  not  to  have  the  intellect  and  the 
judgment  anticipated  by  the  heart  and  the  great  in 
stincts.  There  are  glorious  prejudices,  holy  and  awful 
truths,  which  precede  all  ratiocinations  ;  and  he  who 


120  THE   RE-ADJUSTMENT   OF   FAITH. 

pretended  to  examine  into  the  reality  of  his  own  ex 
istence  without  a  prejudice  in  favor  of  it,  or  into  the 
reality  of  right  and  wrong  as  fundamental  distinctions 
of  the  utmost  significance,  or  into  the  existence  of 
virtue,  or  the  genuineness  of  Christ's  character,  or  the 
holiness  of  God,  with  the  same  sort  of  candor  and  un 
committed  judgment  with  which  he  explored  the  evi 
dences  for  and  against  a  scientific  theory,  or  an  histori 
cal  hypothesis,  or  a  matter  of  literary  criticism,  would 
be  so  obviously  self-deluded,  and  out  of  just  relations 
with  himself  and  truth,  that  we  should  at  once  pro 
nounce  his  inquiry  worthless,  and  his  conclusion  vain. 

It  being  settled,  then,  that  the  great  thing  the 
•Gospel  wants,  is  not  our  testimony  for  its  sake,  but 
our  submission  for  our  own — not  to  triumph  over  our 
doubts,  but  over  our  affections,  that  it  may  bless  our 
lives  and  characters — you  will  appreciate  the  godly 
jealousy  it  has  of  mere  curiosity  and  criticism  and  acu 
men  and  intellectuality,  and  why  it  tells  us  still  that 
we  must  become  like  little  children,  if  we  would  know 
and  feel  its  power  and  become  heirs  of  its  kingdom. 
We,  in  our  conceit,  imagine  that  it  is  because  religious 
truth  and  Christian  faith  are  afraid  of  our  knowledge 
and  criticism  and  shrewdness  and  knowledge  of  the 
world,  that  it  asks  us  to  lay  them  aside  when  we  come 
into  its  presence.  It  is  not  afraid  of  what  these  will 
do  to  its  prejudice,  but  what  they  will  do  to  our  injury. 
It  does  not  want  them  dazzling  our  eyes,  and  dangling 
their  superficial  impertinence  before  our  higher  and 
holier  powers.  It  wants  to  speak  to  our  deep  moral 
instincts,  our  permanent  and  sacred  affections,  our 
spiritual  nature  ;  and  therefore  it  bids  our  noisy  logic 


DOCILITY.  121 

and  lip-wisdom,  our  intellectual  attainments,  all  be 
quiet,  that  our  souls  may  receive  its  simple  and  sublime 
communications,  and  feel  its  glorious  power.  After  we 
have  caught  its  lesson,  and  drunk  in  its  spirit,  we  may 
try  it  as  we  please,  by  history,  science,  philosophy,  and 
it  shall  stand  every  test  ;  but  none  of  these  shall  help 
us  in  advance.  There  is  no  denying  that  this  is  pre 
cisely  the  course  which  superstition  and  imposture,  de 
lusion  and  folly,  would  take,  if  they  were  seeking  pos 
session  of  the  human  soul.  They  would  say :  unless 
you  believe  before  you  examine,  you  cannot  receive  the 
testimonies  we  have  to  offer  ;  unless  you  will  exclude 
the  prying,  curious,  suspicious  temper  you  bring  for 
your  protection  against  imposture,  you  will  see  and 
hear  nothing,  you  will  learn  and  know  nothing.  And 
the  reason  why  they  say  this,  and  why  this  counsel  has 
dangerous  influence  in  the  case  of  superstition,  is  be 
cause  it  has  lawful  power  in  the  case  of  genuine  truth. 
Superstition  addresses  a  sound  principle  when  she 
makes  this  appeal,  but  uses  it  in  a  perilous  way.  Let 
me  illustrate  the  distinction.  An  exquisite  picture — 
Murillo's  Madonna,  if  you  please — is  to  be  exhibited, 
and  you  are  taken  into  a  room  to  see  it,  in  which  the 
light  is  carefully  shut  out  from  all  quarters  but  one, 
and  from  that  only  just  so  much  admitted  as  the  artist 
knows  to  be  suited  to  the  revelation  of  its  highest 
beauty.  In  this  precise  light  you  see  its  wondrous 
loveliness,  and  feel  its  charming  and  exalting  truth. 
You  recognize  the  painter's  claim  to  his  great  reputa 
tion.  Again  :  a  picture-dealer  wishes  to  give  a  facti 
tious  appearance  of  age,  merit,  value,  to  a  pretended 
original.  But  he,  too,  wants  the  light  excluded,  the 
6 


122  THE    RE-ADJUSTMENT    OF    FAITH. 

special  quantity  only  admitted,  and  the  picture  looked 
at  only  in  a  very  carefully  arranged  way.  He  aims  to 
deceive,  and  succeeds.  Are  you,  therefore,  to  deny 
that  a  special  light  and  a  carefully  directed  light  is 
essential  to  the  perception  and  enjoyment  of  the  pic 
ture  of  real  merit  ?  And  so  it  is  plain  enough  that  the 
spirit  of  confidence,  frankness,  and  simplicity,  in  which 
alone  the  highest  truths  are  to  be  seen,  is  the  spirit 
most  open  to  abuse,  and  of  which  error  takes  most  ad 
vantage.  But  until  a  rich  soil  is  undervalued  because 
it  is  favorable  to  weeds,  or  a  sweet  disposition  because 
it  is  easily  betrayed,  or  a  believing  spirit  because  it  is 
taken  in  with  facility,  we  must  not  deny  that  a  child 
like  docility  is  a  proper  condition  for  the  reception  of 
the  Gospel,  because  it  is  an  equally  natural  condition 
for  the  reception  of  that  which  is  only  imaginary  and 
unreal. 

In  an  age  of  light  and  thought  and  criticism,  of 
shrewdness  and  common  sense,  the  best  results  of 
worldly  experience  and  intellectual  culture  are  those 
which  teach  us  not  to  rely  upon  such  experience  and 
culture  for  our  deepest  and  most  saving  convictions. 
It  is  very  certain  that  wisdom,  which  is  the  bright 
consummate  flower  of  knowledge,  is  very  like,  in  its 
tastes  and  even  its  conclusions,  to  that  unconscious 
simplicity  or  docility  of  mind  which  precedes  all  knowl 
edge.  The  wise  old  man  is  again  a  child.  He  has  the 
humility,  teachableness,  modesty,  and  faith  of  a  child. 
How  beautiful  and  touching  it  is  to  see  the  soul,  which 
has  been  strained  out  of  its  place  by  worldly  experience, 
the  biasses  of  party  and  the  pride  of  opinion,  settling 
back,  with  the  relaxed  efforts  of  a  weakened  bodily 


DOCILITY.  123 

vigor,  into  the  more  natural  feelings  and  childlike 
opinions  of  youth  !  I  know  that  we  are  sometimes 
accustomed  to  attribute  this  return  to  early  tastes  and 
feelings  to  a  decline  of  the  faculties,  to  the  loss  of  in 
tellectual  vigor,  to  weariness  and  weakness  of  mind. 
But  what  is  that  strength  of  mind  worth  which  merely 
sustains  us  in  unnatural  and  eccentric  postures  of 
thought  ?  what  that  originality  which  separates  us 
from  homely  and  universal  truths  ?  what  that  bril 
liancy  which  is  due  to  the  sparks  struck  out  by  our 
conflict  with  wisdom  ?  How  plain  is  it  to  riper  souls, 
that  half  the  smart  and  noisy  and  striking  thought  of 
the  world  is  false  and  hollow,  while  the  unshowy,  sober, 
and  substantial  sense  dwells  with  the  unpretending  and 
the  unobserved  !  Moral  qualities  are  infinitely  more 
essential  to  the  perception  and  estimate  of  facts,  than 
intellectual  qualities.  It  is  desirable,  indeed,  to  have 
acuteness,  sagacity,  discrimination,  in  the  observer ;  but 
how  much  more  to  have  candor,  the  love  of  truth,  and 
the  strictest  scrupulosity  in  stating  it.  What  philoso 
phers,  or  men  of  science  and  learning,  could  have  filled 
the  place  of  the  apostles  in  reporting  the  life  of  Christ  ? 
They  would  have  obtruded  their  theories  and  schools 
of  philosophy,  and  tried  to  make  a  fine  and  striking  and 
coherent  story  out  of  the  case  ;  and  what  would  have 
become  of  that  inimitable  portrait  of  Christ  and  Chris 
tianity  we  now  derive  from  their  transparent  sketch  ? 
illiterate,  unskilful,  broken,  and  confused,  but  with  the 
most  precious  proofs  of  nature,  reality,  and  genuineness 
in  its  very  defects. 

My  brethren,  it  is  so  with  the  understanding  and 
reception  of  the  religion  of  Jesus  Christ.     If  you  desire 


124  THE    RE-ADJUSTMENT    OF   FAITH. 

to  know  what  this  blessed  Gospel  is,  to  receive  it,  un 
derstand  it,  and  live  in  and  from  it,  you  must  approach 
it  in  the  spirit  of  little  children — you  must  lay  aside 
your  pride  of  understanding,  your  worldly  wisdom,  and 
dearly-bought  experience.  They  belong  to  a  quite  dif 
ferent  class  of  pursuits — are  valuable  only  in  a  very  dif 
ferent  sphere  from  that  of  religious  experience.  If, 
after  eighteen  centuries'  experience  of  its  fruits,  we  have 
not  made  up  our  minda  to  trust  Christianity — if  we  are 
disposed  to  be  wary  of  it,  and  to  stand  on  our  reserved 
rights — we  are  practising  the  same  folly  that  a  bright 
and  confident  youth  would  be  guilty  of,  who  should  go 
to  see  the  master-pieces  of  art,  architecture,  sculpture, 
painting — and  at  once  set  up  his  raw  taste  and  judg 
ment  against  the  testimony  of  time — stand  before  the 
Apollo,  or  the  Moses  of  Michael  Angelo,  or  the  Trans 
figuration,  or  the  Parthenon,  not  to  correct  his  own  ig 
norance,  form  his  own  taste,  and  drink  in  the  humbling 
lessons  of  beauty  and  truth  they  embody,  but  to  in 
dulge  his  self-opinion,  criticise  their  defects,  and  dispute 
the  verdict  of  ages.  Is  it  to  lay  aside  reason,  to  shut 
the  eyes  and  open  the  ears,  to  bow  to  mere  authority, 
that  we  are  recommending  in  respect  to  our  religious 
faith  ?  Not  at  all.  The  reason  is  never  so  sound  and 
active,  the  eyes  never  so  clear,  the  judgment  never  so 
reliable,  the  man  never  so  much  in  possession  of  all  his 
powers,  as  when  he  says  to  himself,  I  am  a  child  before 
God — an  ignorant,  dependent  child,  who  feels  his  pro 
found  need  of  instruction,  his  inadequacy,  by  mere  self- 
directed  thought,  to  penetrate  the  secrets  of  faith,  hope, 
and  charity  ;  and  who  thankfully,  humbly,  trustingly 
opens  his  soul  to  the  lessons  of  the  Great  Master.  We 


DOCILITY.  125 

do  our  souls  despite,  we  really  disparage  and  despoil 
them  of  their  highest  worth,  when  we  deny  them  the 
sagacity  to  know  and  take  their  humble  place  in  the 
presence  of  a  personage  like  Christ,  their  true  attitude 
of  love,  reverence,  and  trust,  hefore  a  religion  like  that 
of  the  Cross.  It  is  a  more  than  earthly  faculty,  this 
faith  that  humbles  and  exalts  the  soul.  It  rests  upon 
a  sublimer  evidence  than  that  of  sense  ;  and,  because  it 
cannot  interpret  into  propositions  intelligible  to  all 
minds  the  grounds  of  its  confidence,  do  not  suppose 
those  grounds  to  be  fanciful  or  unreasonable.  When 
the  soul  of  the  thinking,  disciplined,  scientific,  and  all- 
accomplished  man,  makes  itself  like  a  little  child  in  the 
presence  of  its  Maker,  sits  at  the  feet  of  Jesus  with  an 
air  of  waiting  and  tender  discipleship,  admits  the  re 
proofs  of  the  Gospel  with  an  unresisting  penitence,  and 
unaffectedly  feels  that  humility,  lowliness  of  mind,  love, 
are  profounder  acquirements  than  all  that  the  schools 
and  academies  can  bestow — then  we  have  a  glorious  and 
most  instructive  union  of  the  highest  intelligence  with 
tfee  most  childlike  faith.  How  beautiful,  how  affecting, 
how  suggestive  is  this  spectacle.  "  Let  not  the  wise  man 
glory  in  his  wisdom  ;  neither  let  the  mighty  man  glory 
in  his  might.  Let  not  the  rich  man  glory  in  his  riches  ; 
but  let  him  that  glorieth  glory  in  this,  that  he  under- 
standeth  and  knoweth  me."  1 

"  Take  heed,"  said  our  Saviour,  in  illustrating  in  the 
context,  the  necessity  of  a  childlike  spirit  and  temper 
in  the  religious  inquirer  and  Christian  disciple — refer 
ring,  doubtless,  to  the  humble  origin  and  poor,  mental 
furnishing  of  his  then  chosen  disciples,  which  made 

1  Jer.  x.  23. 


126  THE    RE-ADJUSTMENT    OF    FAITH. 

them  objects  of  contempt  to  the  learned  and  great — 
"  Take  heed,  that  ye  despise  not  one  of  these  little  ones 
(these  children  in  worldly  wisdom  and  scholastic  ac 
complishments)  ;  for  I  say  unto  you,  that  in  heaven, 
their  angels  do  always  behold  the  face  of  my  Father, 
which  is  in  heaven." 

Oh,  my  brethren,  there  are  diviner  and  purer  sources 
of  wisdom  than  any  within  the  exclusive  control  of  the 
educated  and  the  great.  Whatever  dependence  the 
mind  may  have  on  learned  teachers  and  books,  the  soul 
has  immediate  access  to  its  source,  and  its  source  has 
direct  communication  with  it;  so  that,  informed  by  the 
spirit  of  truth,  the  meanest  faculties  have  bloomed  into 
wisdom,  and  the  most  uneducated  and  unfavored  per 
sons  discovered  an  all-furnished  nature.  Exactly  what 
our  Lord  means  by  saying  that  their  angels  always  be 
hold  the  face  of  his  Father,  I  know  not ;  but  that  every 
man,  in  a  lowly  and  humble  temper  of  soul,  has  a  mes 
senger  from  God,  waiting  to  instruct  him — an  infallible 
and  heaven- inspired  teacher,  I  fully  believe.  Whether 
it  be  that  these  our  angels  are  our  own  souls,  which,  ns 
they  came  from  God,  and  indeed  have  never  left  him, 
may  be  considered  as  really  still  before  his  throne,  gaz 
ing  into  his  face,  and  ready  to  report  to  us,  in  the  first 
lull  of  passion  and  wilmlness,  at  the  first  moment  of 
humility  and  teachableness,  what  they  see  and  know; 
or,  whether  we  are  blessed  enough  to  have  each  a  guar 
dian  angel,  who  is  charged  with  our  salvation,  and  for 
ever  waits  for  the  opportunity  to  catch  our  now  preoc 
cupied  and  diverted  attention,  who  shall  say  ?  But  the 
practical  truth  is  the  same.  Every  man  carries  in  him 
self  the  seeds  of  eternal  truth,  the  hints  and  suggestions 


DOCILITY.  127 

of  a  divine  life  and  character.  Would  lie  heed  his  own 
heart,  would  he  allow  his  conscience  to  be  heard,  would  he 
obey  his  better  instincts,  he  would  be  wiser  in  one  hour 
than  all  the  learning  of  schools  and  the  experience  of 
the  world  can  make  him.  Irreligion,  selfishness,  inve 
racity,  pride,  sensuality,  jealousy,  hatred,  envy — who  ever 
unlearned  these  in  the  world,  or  in  the  library,  or  in  soci 
ety,  or  the  company  of  the  famous  and  the  brilliant  ?  An 
angel  from  heaven  must  teach  them  :  the  soul  must  see 
their  falseness  and  folly  for  itself.  It  is  a  moral  and 
spiritual  light  that  can  alone  illumine  the  path  of  sal 
vation.  All  our  darkness  is  a  bandage  we  wilfully  bind 
over  our  own  eyes  ;  all  our  difficulty,  is  made  by  our 
self-will.  Were  we  willing  to  know  and  to  do  the  truth, 
it  would  flood  our  souls.  Had  we  the  simplicity  of 
apostles,  we  should  share  their  illumination.  And  it  is 
this  principle  which  accounts  for  the  wonderful  re-crea 
tion  of  the  soul,  sometimes  produced  suddenly  by  pow 
erful  religious  influences.  It  takes  no  more  time  to 
open  the  eyes  of  the  soul  than  the  eyes  of  the  body ; 
and  the  prospect  is  always  ready.  Thore  is  no  such 
wonderful  change  in  life  possible,  as  the  change  from 
self-conceit  to  humility,  from  pride  of  opinion  to  utter 
teachableness,  from  the  attitude  of  one  that  turns  his 
back  upon  divine  truth,  to  that  of  an  earnest  pupil  ; 
and  that  change  is  a  change  of  will,  which  may  take 
place  in  an  instant.  You  do  not  know,  you  do  not 
believe,  perhaps,  my  brethren,  that  there  is  a  veil  over 
the  minds  of  unchristian  men,  the  sudden  raising  of 
which  would  reveal  a  world  as  new  and  lovely  and  in 
viting  as  that  which  the  blind  man,  restored  miracu 
lously  to  sight,  would  behold  in  a  summer's  day  on 


128  THE    RE-ADJUSTMENT    OF   FAITH. 

the  fairest  spot  of  earth.  You  do  not  see  the  world  the 
child  of  faith  sees — sees  here,  sees  everywhere.  It  is 
not  superior  intelligence,  acuter  intellect,  longer  study, 
that  opens  this  world.  It  is  only  simplicity,  humility, 
lowliness  of  heart,  that  reveals  it — these  are  angels 
that  can  behold  the  face  of  the  Father  in  heaven  ;  and 
they  become  our  angels,  our  guardians,  inspirers  and  il 
luminators,  from  the  moment  we  welcome  them  to  our 
presence,  or  cease  to  shut  them  out  from  our  souls. 

FEB.  14,  1858. 


IT. 

aODANDHIS  PROVIDENCE. 


II. 

GOD  AND  HIS  PROVIDENCE. 


SERMON  IX 

THE  ABODE  OF  GOD  AND  CHRIST  IN  THE  DISCIPLE'S  HEART. 

"  If  a  man  love  me,  he  will  keep  my  words :  and  my  Father  will  love  him, 
and  we  will  come  unto  him,  and  make  our  abode  with  him." — John 
xiv.  23. 

No  one  can  have  read  attentively  the  few  middle 
chapters  of  St.  John's  Gospel  without  a  sense  of  the 
spiritual  entanglement  in  which  God  and  Christ,  the 
Holy  Spirit  and  the  human  soul,  are  there  involved. 
You  will  notice,  with  surprise,  that  I  add  to  the  usual 
catalogue  of  divine  persons,  the  human  soul.  Yet  it  is 
only  custom  that  justifies  your  surprise,  for  the  New 
Testament  brings  the  soul  into  as  close  a  union  and 
oneness  with  Christ,  or  God,  or  the  Holy  Spirit,  or  all 
of  them  together,  as  it  does  either  of  the  others  with 
the  rest.  It  is  indeed  strange,  that  among  the  variety 
of  ingenious  theological  systems,  there  has  not  been  one 
based  not  on  a  Trinity,  but  a  Quaternity,  the  human 


132  THE    RE-ADJUSTMENT    OF    FAITH. 

soul  forming  the  fourth  person  in  the  ineffable  associa 
tion.  Perhaps  as  sound  arguments  could  be  adduced 
to  prove  the  equality  and  oneness  of  the  soul  with  God, 
as  the  equality  and  oneness  of  the  alleged  persons  in  the 
ecclesiastical  trinity. 

We  are  exhorted  to  be  one  with  God,  even  as  Christ 
is  one  with  the  Father.  We  are  said  to  be  in  God,  in 
the  same  terms  in  which  God  is  said  to  be  in  us  ;  now, 
to  have  Christ  in  us,  and  then  to  be  in  Christ — and  in 
short,  are  so  inextricably  mixed  up  in  our  spiritual  re 
lations,  as  to  make  it  quite  impossible  to  say  which  is 
which,  and  what  is  what,  when  we  seek  to  distinguish 
the  operations  of  the  human  and  divine,  the  direct  and 
the  indirect  influences  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  the  paternal 
and  the  filial  elements  in  the  Godhead,  the  motions  of 
the  Holy  Ghost,  and  the  motions  of  the  God-created 
soul.  "  At  that  day" — meaning  the  day  when  his  dis 
ciples  should  fully  obey  him — "  ye  shall  know/'  said 
Jesus,  "  that  I  am  in  my  Father,  and  ye  in  me,  and  I 
in  you  ; "  and  again,  in  the  text,  "  If  a  man  love  me,  he 
will  keep  my  words  :  and  my  Father  will  love  him,  and 
we  will  come  unto  him,  and  make  our  abode  with  him/' 

It  is  far  from  my  present  intention  (and  may  it  be 
far  from  any  and  all  the  religious  meditations  of  this 
place)  to  attempt  any  navigation  of  the  ice-bound, 
wreck-strewn  sea  of  metaphysics,  in  search  of  the  pas 
sages  that  connect  the  great  oceans  of  that  spiritual 
globe  we  call  the  Godhead.  It  may  be  as  curious  an 
inquiry  as  that  which  has  carried  so  many  baffled  expe 
ditions  to  the  Arctic  seas  ;  but  if  rewarded  with  suc 
cess,  (which  it  never  has  been,)  it  is  difficult  to  see  how 
it  could  be  any  more  practically  useful  to  the  moral 


GOD    AND    CHRIST    IN    THE    HEART.  133 

navigator  in  his  voyage  to  heaven,  than  a  North-west 
passage  would  be,  when  found,  to  the  commerce  of  the 
world. 

A  close  attention  to  this  subject — and  any  other 
would  be  useless  to  the  hearer — will  serve,  I  think,  to 
disperse,  or,  at  any  rate,  to  set  in  their  true  character, 
many  of  the  discouraging  and  perplexing  irrationalities 
of  religious  statement,  now  current  in  the  Christian 
world. 

I  suppose  the  sort  of  moral  complexity,  or,  to  speak 
more  correctly,  the  kind  of  indefinite  fusion,  not  to  say 
confusion,  among  the  persons  and  relations  of  the  divine 
and  the  human,  found  in  the  New  Testament,  gives  us 
a  most  useful  and  instructive  hint  as  to  the  actual  con 
stitution  of  the  moral  and  spiritual  world  ;  of  the  fluid 
relations,  the  inter-dependence,  the  hearty  sympathy, 
the  perfect  co-operation  and  communion  of  God,  and 
Christ,  and  good  men.  God,  and  Christ,  and  the  Holy 
Spirit,  and  faithful  human  souls,  are  related  in  so  many 
ways — are  so  much  one  in  thought,  and  feeling,  and 
conduct — interchange  so  naturally  and  easily  their  mu 
tual  influences,  that  it  becomes  quite  as  impossible  to 
distinguish  their  separate  beings  and  define  the  bounda 
ries  of  each,  as  to  mark  the  precise  lines  which  divide 
its  gulfs  and  bays  from  the  ocean,  or  to  say  whether  it 
is  the  rivers  that  feed  the  sea,  or  the  sea,  with  its 
mighty  exhalations  falling  in  rains  and  snows,  that  feeds 
the  rivers.  When  Christ  says,  "  Believe  me,  I  am  in  the 
Father  and  the  Father  in  me,"  he  describes  an  inter- 
penetration  of  being,  a  completeness  of  mutual  posses 
sion,  which  ought  not  to  be  wholly  unintelligible  to 
any  two  human  hearts  that  have  so  given  and  received, 


134  THE    RE-ADJUSTMENT    OF   FAITH. 

received  and  given,  as  not  to  know  which  itr  the  con 
tainer  and  which  the  contained.  And  when,  in  like 
manner,  he  speaks  of  his  disciples,  "I  in  you,  and  you 
in  me,"  he  describes  a  similar  community  of  feeling,  in 
which  the  relations  are  too  subtle  and  thorough  to  be 
the  subjects  of  exact  measurement,  or  of  any  more  spe 
cific  description. 

The  spiritual  world,  my  brethren,  of  which,  by  the 
possession  of  spiritual  natures  we  are  now  inhabitants, 
and  to  which  God,  and  Christ,  and  angels  belong,  is, 
doubtless,  in  its  unity  and  closeness  of  relations,  copied 
and  illustrated  in  the  unity  and  mutual  dependencies 
of  the  material  world.  It  does  not  seem  strange  to  us 
that  the  elements  should  know  each  other  and  conspire 
with  friendly  sympathy  to  one  result.  Let  the  moun 
tains  heave  their  heads  ever  so  high,  the  sea  knows  how 
to  overtop  them  with  the  plighted  clouds,  and  through 
her  mighty  syphons,  to  pour  the  ocean  back  upon  the 
hills  from  whence  it  came.  The  earth  feels  the  wants 
of  every  tiny  fibre  that  strikes  into  her  soil,  and  from 
her  great  laboratory,  feeds  and  medicines  the  root  with 
an  exquisite  chemistry  that  learned  science  reverently 
adores.  Or  is  it  the  plant  which  knows  her  own  errand, 
and  in  the  dark  selects  her  own  peculiar  property  from 
the  mother's  swarthy  breast  ? 

The  air  is,  in  its  agitation,  the  locomotive  power  of 
nature  ;  in  its  constitution,  her  food.  How  impossible 
is  it  to  overstate,  or  even  to  state,  the  completeness  of 
the  relations  among  the  powers  of  outward  nature  ?  or 
to  arrange  in  any  scale  of  relative  importance,  elements 
which  are  alike  indispensable,  and  for  the  want  of  either 
of  which  all  the  rest  would  be  useless  ?  Is  it  the  oceans 


GOD   AND   CHEIST   IN   THE   HEAKT.  135 

that  surround  the  earth,  or  the  earth  that  divides  the 
oceans  ?  Is  it  the  air  that  nourishes  vegetation,  or 
vegetation  that  purges  the  air  ?  Where  is  the  begin 
ning,  what  the  order,  of  the  constitution  of  physical  na 
ture  ?  As  well  might  we  seek  the  beginning  of  a  cir 
cle,  or  the  starting  point  on  a  globe.  Each  part  of  na 
ture  runs  into  and  is  lost  in  the  other  parts.  The  earth 
flows  into  the^sea  in  the  diluvium  of  her  rivers,  the  sea 
mounts  by  her  vapors  into  the  air,  the  air  descends  by 
her  clouds  into  the  earth,  and  thus  the  eternal  circuit, 
not  without  constant  difference  and  improvement,  is 
forever  going  on.  In  like  manner,  the  mineral  elements 
of  the  earth  are  taking  shape  in  plants  and  animals,  all 
by  necessary  decay,  destined  to  give  back  their  constit- 
ents  to  the  globe,  though  not  without  such  changes  of 
place  and  circumstance  as  by  their  perpetual  revolution 
must  help  on  a  career  of  progress  to  its  consummation. 
If  we  imagine  the  circuits  of  the  material  world  to  have 
no  end  but  their  own  repetition,  we  misread  geological 
and  chemical  science,  which  show  a  beautiful  work  of 
improvement,  not  a  mere  process  of  change,  to  be  going 
on  in  nature. 

Moreover,  in  this  community  and  co-operation  of 
nature's  forces  and  faculties,  a  union,  in  which  it  is  im 
possible  to  trace  the  lines  where  the  elements  or  king 
doms  join,  or  leave,  each  other — there  is,  nevertheless, 
no  imperilling,  no  confounding,  of  distinctions.  Things 
are  not  the  less  separate  and  characteristic,  because 
they  have  relations  the  intimacy  of  which  it  is  impos 
sible  to  interrupt.  Birds,  fishes,  beasts,  plants,  stones, 
are  none  the  less  distinguished  and  specific,  because 
there  are  fishes  that  are  hardly  distinguishable  from 


136  THE    RE-ADJUSTMENT    OF    FAITH. 

beasts,  and  plants  that  fall  within  the  definition  of 
minerals.  The  union,  sympathy,  and  roundness  of  na 
ture,  does  not  exclude  or  endanger  her  beautiful  variety 
or  manifold  individualities.  Now,  doubtless,  the  spir 
itual  world  is  really  the  basis  and  cause  of  the  visible 
world.  At  any  rate,  our  minds  instinctively  trust  to 
the  analogies  between  them,  as  if,  by  the  highest  law, 
they  corresponded  as  substance  and  shadow.  The  sym 
pathy,  the  modes  and  degrees  of  community  in  the  ma 
terial  world,  hint,  then,  at  the  nature  and  laws  of  the 
sympathy  and  community  in  the  spiritual  world.  If 
so,  the  spiritual  world  is  a  whole.  Its  component  parts 
sustain  settled,  organic,  and  necessary  relations  with 
each  other,  and  these  relations  are  involved  in  the  very 
nature  of  the  different  elements  that  compose  it. 

Thus,  the  communion  and  intercourse  of  the  soul 
with  its  Maker  and  Savioui?  is  not  accidental,  contrary 
to  analogy,  and  to  be  regarded  as  unreal,  because  it  is 
confessedly  mysterious. 

We  may  wonder  how  it  is  possible  for  the  human 
soul  to  sustain  relations  with  God  and  Christ,  and 
wonder  the  more,  if  we  cannot  very  distinctly  trace  the 
nature  and  form  of  these  relations.  It  may  appear  to 
our  rude  apprehension  of  such  mysteries,  a  very  indefi 
nite  form  of  statement,  to  affirm  that  obedience  to  con 
science,  aspiration,  truth,  gratitude,  wonder,  veneration 
— all  of  them  certainly  human  acts — are  just  as  really 
points  of  contact  with  God,  interpenetrations  of  his 
spirit,  possession  of  him  and  by  him,  as  though  we  laid 
our  very  hand  upon  him,  and  had  his  everlasting  arms 
palpably  about  us.  Yet  this  is  the  testimony  of  the 
spirit.  It  is  not  obvious  to  sense,  it  is  true,  for  the 


GOD    AND    CHRIST    IN-  THE    HEART.  137 

soul  has  its  own  senses  ;  they  are  not  bodily  senses  ;  its 
own  language  ;  it  is  not  a  scientific  one.  For  the  spir 
itual  world,  in  which  the  soul  is  always  living,  is  a  world 
having  its  own  laws.  Its  intercourse,  friendships,  sympa 
thies,  are  different  from,  because  higher  and  nobler  than, 
those  of  flesh  and  sense.  But  let  us  not  suppose  them 
less  real.  No  candid  mind  will  deny  that  the  commu 
nion  or  intercourse  with  God,  which  the  soul  has  in 
prayer,  is  a  vastly  less  describable  and  definite  kind 
of  intercourse  than  that  we  have  with  an  absent  friend. 
And  the  difference  is  not  merely  one  of  degree  :  it  is  a 
difference  in  kind.  The  most  spiritual  and  devout 
minds,  provided  they  possess  an  intelligence  competent 
to  observe  and  discriminate  their  own  inward  acts,  will 
feel  this  difference  most.  But  they  also  will  be  the 
best  satisfied  that  this  difference  should  exist,  will  soon 
est  discover  that  it  is  founded  in  the  very  nature  of 
spiritual  things,  and  is  a  higher  and  more  satisfying, 
not  a  lower  and  less  sustaining,  kind  of  intercourse, 
than  a  more  definite  and  palpable  one.  In  like  man 
ner,  the  communion  with  Christ,  which  a  spiritual  dis 
ciple  comes  to  know  and  enjoy,  is  a  communion  which 
is  attained  by  a  gradual  experience  of  the  Christian 
life.  Living  in  this  world  with  the  moral  and  spiritual 
ends  commended  to  us  in  the  Gospel,  struggling  with 
our  own  hearts  and  with  outward  circumstances,  and 
at  the  same  time  reading  and  reflecting  upon  our  Sav 
iour's  career,  until  his  conflicts,  trials,  victories,  his 
words  and  ways,  sink  into  our  memories,  and  grow  fa 
miliar  to  our  thoughts  and  affections,  we  gradually 
come  to  blend  his  life  and  our  own  together.  Some 
times  we  go  back  and  live  over  with  him  his  sorrows 


138  THE    RE-ADJUSTMENT    OF    FAITH. 

and  joys  ;  sometimes  he  comes  forward  and  lives  over 
with  us  our  trials  and  successes  ;  until  our  several  beings 
grow  into  one,  and  it  is  difficult  to  say  whether  we  are 
in  Christ,  or  whether  Christ  is  in  us.  Continuing  on 
in  this  way,  we  live  into  Christ  and  Christ  lives  into 
us.  We  understand  him  more  and  more,  love  and  ven 
erate  him  more  and  more,  and  he  yields  us  more  and 
sweeter  influences.  Does  any  one  say  that  this  is  an 
intercourse  of  fancy,  of  imagination,  of  feeling  ?  I  re 
ply,  that  under  these  names  you  describe  the  law  of 
spiritual  intercourse  ;  and  that  fancy,  imagination,  and 
feeling,  are  the  senses  by  which  the  soul  holds  its  rela 
tions  and  communion  with  the  unseen  ;  and  that  you 
have  done  nothing  to  prove  this  intercourse  unreal  by 
thoughtlessly  disparaging  the  instruments  by  which  it 
is  carried  on,  having  only  shown,  what  is  not  denied, 
that  it  is  different  from  ordinary  intercourse. 

If  we  revert  a  moment  to  the  possible  communion 
of  the  soul  with  God,  we  shall  see  this,  perhaps,  more 
clearly.  What  is  the  history  of  a  religious  mind's  in 
tercourse  with  God  ?  It  has  its  various  stages  and 
processes.  It  begins,  in  a  religious  childhood,  with 
comparatively  gross  and  external  ideas.  God  is  in  the 
sky,  seated  on  a  throne,  a  venerable  Being  in  human 
form.  It  is  enough  for  childhood.  By  degrees,  as  we 
begin  to  know  ourselves  by  our  minds,  and  not  by  our 
bodies,  we  find  the  external  image  of  the  Deity  growing 
more  dim  to  our  thoughts.  We  shrink  from  a  concep 
tion  which  limits  and  humanizes  an  infinite  and  perfect 
God.  As  we  contemplate  the  divine  attributes  and 
character  more  and  more,  the  Deity  gradually  moves 
from  his  throne  in  the  skies,  or  rather  expands  his 


GOD   AND    CHRIST    IN    THE    HEART.  139 

presence,  until  his  works  seem  everywhere  pervaded  by 
his  Being.  Then  we  partly,  though  perhaps  never  en 
tirely,  lose  the  instinctive  tendency  to  look  up  for  God, 
rather  than  about.  Finally,  with  the  development  of 
our  own  souls,  God,  whom  we  have  heen  seeing  in  na 
ture,  now  begins  to  appear  more  distinctly  in  our  own 
hearts  and  consciences.  For,  with  spiritual  development, 
we  are  moved,  by  we  know  not  what  commanding  qual 
ity,  to  reverence  and  fear  ourselves,  and  slowly  we  dis 
cover  that  the  ground  of  this  reverence  and  fear,  is  God 
in  us.  From  this  time  our  communion  and  intercourse 
with  God  is  more  intimate,  though  perhaps  not  more 
definite.  For  it  is  not  the  law  of  the  spiritual  nature 
to  require  an  increasing  definiteness.  Indeed,  the  con 
templation  of  God  in  nature,  and  especially  in  human 
nature,  in  our  own  soul,  so  increases  our  knowledge  and 
love  of  his  character,  so  moralizes  and  exalts  our  no 
tions  and  our  faith,  that  we  cease  to  wish  to  walk  by 
sight — that  is,  supported  by  those  definite  and  describa- 
ble  conceptions  which  the  timid,  unknowing,  unspiritual 
mind  requires.  We  heartily  and  cheerfully  acquiesce 
in  the  manner  and  degree  in  which  God  chooses  to  be 
known  and  to  be  seen.  A  spiritual  instinct  teaches  us 
that  the  character  of  our  intercourse  with  him  is  of  a 
higher  and  nobler  sort,  a  more  inspiring  and  nourishing 
communion,  than  one  of  a  more  definite  kind.  We 
adore  and  love  what  is  obscure  and  unrevealed  in  God 
as  well  as  what  is  plain  and  seen.  And  thus,  without 
having  made  the  least  progress  in  breaking  down  the 
barriers  which  hide  God's  personality  from  our  senses, 
without  having  attained  any  miraculous  or  describable 
vision  of  God,  we  do  attain,  if  we  strive  for  such  a 


140  THE    RE-ADJUSTMENT    OF    FAITH. 

"blessing  with  the  obedient  efforts  which  it  so  infinitely 
rewards— we  do  attain  to  a  kind  of  intercourse  or  com 
munion  with  God,  which  is  inexpressibly  sweet,  sus» 
taining,  glorious,  and  real.  If  any  man  tells  me  this  is 
dreamy,  intangible,  imaginative,  I  answer  him,  that 
his  very  soul  is  dreamy,  intangible,  imaginative.  Let 
him  show  me  his  soul  ;  bound  it,  prove  its  existence  ! 
The  relations  and  intercourse  of  the  soul  with  its  Maker 
must  partake  of  the  soul's  own  nature  and  indefinite- 
ness.  If  God  be  as  real  as  our  own  souls — if  our  in 
tercourse  with  him  has  all  the  reality  belonging  to 
thought  and  affection — what  more  can  we  expect  or 
wish  ?  And  this  is  the  actual  truth  :  that  those  who 
seek  God  and  Christ,  find  them  in  a  way,  and  to  a  de 
gree  which  satisfies  the  wants  of  the  soul,  in  precise 
proportion  to  its  faithfulness  and  spirituality.  "  If  any 
man  love  me,  he  will  keep  my  words  :  and  my  Father 
will  love  him,  and  we  will  come  unto  him  and  make 
our  abode  with  him." 

The  abode  of  God  and  Christ  in  the  loving  and 
obedient  human  heart  !  Oh  !  my  beloved  brethren,  I 
wish  it  were  in  my  power  to  satisfy  you  how  real  and 
tnie  this  language  is,  spiritually  and  belie vingly  re 
ceived.  Kemember  that  the  soul  is  made  by  God  and 
for  God  ;  that  he  •  is  always  in  it,  though  we  see  and 
feel  him  not.  Kemember  that  Jesus  Christ,  our  Sav 
iour,  is  our  Saviour  from  the  foundation  of  the  world  ; 
that  our  moral  and  spiritual  salvation  has  from  eternity 
laid  in  the  knowledge  and  adoption  of  his  temper  and 
spirit,  and  in  a  life  substantially  conformed  to  his. 
Perceive,  then,  that  to  dwell  with  God  and  Christ  is 
not  to  dwell  with  strangers  ;  and  that  for  them  to  take 


GOD    AND    CHRIST    IN    THE    HEART.  141 

up  their  abode  in  us,  is  riot  for  them  to  enter  into  a 
stranger's  door.  God  and  Christ  are  always  seeking  us, 
and  our  blind  souls,  in  the  groanings  and  dissatisfac 
tions  of  their  life-long  wants,  are  always,  if  uncon 
sciously,  seeking  them.  Nature,  with  all  its  inarticu 
late  voices,  with  all  its  symbols,  and  whispers,  and 
beckoning  hands,  is  but  God's  shadowy  form,  his  veiled 
figure,  his  choked,  paternal  voice,  seeking  his  child, 
like  blind  Isaac,  struggling  to  lay  his  dying  hands  on 
Esau's  head.  Society,  with  all  its  divine  order  and 
teachings,  its  nursing  care,  its  schooling  apparatus,  its 
developments  of  love,  and  mercy,  and  protection — what 
is  it  but  God,  trying  to  put  his  attributes  into  such 
simple  sentences  that  the  dullest  soul  may  spell  him 
out  !  What  is  history,  but  God's  presence,  reflected 
on  the  walls  of  sense,  and  passing  in  shadow,  magnified 
and  prolonged  for  the  slow,  inapt  perception  of  man 
kind  ?  The  Church — why,  what  is  it  but  Christ's 
body  ?  the  pierced  feet  in  its  persecuted  progress,  the 
bleeding  hands  in  its  repulsed  embraces  ;  Christ's  body, 
still  warm  with  his  spirit,  still  near  to  his  disciples' 
touch,  willing  still  to  be  crucified,  always  dying,  always 
rising  and  -  ascending  ;  Christ  with  us,  preaching,  lov 
ing,  warning,  beseeching,  still  making  disciples,  taking 
new  Johns  to  his  bosom,  telling  other  denying  Peters, 
with  thrice-repeated  forgiveness,  to  feed  his  sheep  ;  feel 
ing  the  treachery  of  new  Judases,  lifting  fresh  Magda 
len  s  from  the  ground,  and  raising  many  another  widow's 
son  from  the  grave. 

In  every  way,  my  brethren,  by  constitution,  by  cir 
cumstances,  by  inheritance  ;  as  the  offspring  and  heirs 
of  God's  earth  and  the  outward  universe  ;  as  rational, 


142  THE    RE-ADJUSTMENT    OF    FAITH. 

moral,  and  spiritual  beings  ;  as  the  heirs  of  past  his 
tory  ;  as  the  subjects  of  a  mysterious  and  sacred  provi 
dence  ;  as  the  possessors  of  the  Christian  Church  ;  as 
the  owners  of  the  Bible — in  every  way  we  are  bound  up 
with  God  and  Christ,  and  cannot  escape  our  blessed 
imprisonment.  If  we  but  knew  the  things  that  belong 
unto  our  peace  !  Whether  we  will  or  not,  they  love  us, 
bless  us,  possess  us  !  But  we  can  only  consciously 
know  and  feel  this  possession  and  blessing,  by  giving 
them  our  obedience  and  service.  "  If  a  man  love  me, 
he  will  keep  my  words  :  and  my  Father  will  love  him, 
and  we  will  come  unto  him  and  make  our  abode  with 
him." 

The  harmony  and  union  of  nature,  the  relations  and 
co-operations  of  her  forces,  have  no  hindrance  from  self- 
will,  from  folly  and  vice  !  Her  snows  resist  not  the  re 
turning  sun,  her  springs  refuse  not  to  flow,  her  buds  to 
burst,  her  birds  to  sing,  her  grasses  to  grow  green,  when 
Spring  leads  back  the  year,  grown  young  in  his  winter 
grave,  and  calls  on  all  the  youth  in  nature's  sympa 
thetic  breast  to  give  him  fitting  welcome  !  There  is 
no  obduracy,  no  discord,  no  disunion  in  these  !  But 
into  the  spiritual  world,  in  which  even  now  our  souls 
are  living,  enters  this  Satan  among  the  sons  of  God. 
Sin  !  this  wilful,  capricious,  discord-breathing,  obdu 
rate,  and  selfish  private  heart,  that  will  not  join  the 
chorus  of  divine  praise,  that  will  not  be  at  peace  with 
God,  that  will  not  let  Christ  bless  and  save  it  ;  that 
madly,  blindly — and  oh  !  how  ignorantly  and  pitiably  ! 
—thinks  it  knows  its  own  way,  its  own  peace  and  in 
terest,  better  than  its  gentle  and  holy  Master,  who 
pleads  in  its  secret  bosom  ;  bet/er  than  its  God  that 


GOD    AND    CHEIST    IN    THE    HEART.  143 

entreats  it  and  yearns  for  it,  and  bears  and  forbears, 
and  ceases  not  to  whisper,  and  beckon,  and  entreat  its 
obdurate  egotism  and  suicidal  alienation  from  the 
truth  ! 

Oh,  my  brethren,  what  shall  make  us  willing  to 
give  our  houseless  Saviour  a  shelter  in  our  bosoms — our 
spurned  God  a  temple  in  our  hearts  ?  Are  we  not  old 
enough  to  have  learned  the  hopelessness  and  despair  of 
unbelief,  and  of  unloving,  untrusting  hearts  ?  Is  it  not 
a  dark  and  wretched  hell  enough  that  we  have  already 
reached,  in  our  selfishness  and  sins,  in  our  unrestrained 
lusts  and  passions,  that  we  seek  a  lower  and  more 
dreadful  depth  !  Are  we  not  alone  and  solitary,  and 
forsaken  enough  in  our  present  irreligion,  inhumanity, 
worldliness,  and  frivolity,  that  we  would  isolate  and 
chain  ourselves  down  in  a  narrower  dungeon,  by  new 
hardness  of  heart  and  longer  contempt  of  God's  law  ! 
Turn  ye,  then,  turn  ye,  for  why  will  ye  die  ?  Ye  know 
not  the  company  ye  are  disowning,  the  harmony  ye 
break,  the  glorious  guests  ye  bar  out  !  God  and  Christ 
are  waiting  to  make  their  abode  with  you  !  Could  you 
look  into  some  hearts  that  are  gathered  here  to-day, 
you  would  soon  know  the  tender  secret,  the  sacred, 
blissful  reality  of  this  society  !  You  think  God  is  far 
away  in  the  heavens — Christ  at  his  side.  Oh  !  much 
more  are  they  now  here  in  the  souls  that  have  given  a 
hearty,  trusting  welcome  to  their  approach.  They 
have  come  and  joined  the  blessed  circle  in  which  the 
humble,  loving,  believing  human  soul  forever  sits — sits 
in  a  half-unconscious,  because  in  so  familiar  and  natu 
ral  a  companionship  with  God  and  with  Christ.  For^ 
do  not  suppose,  ye  faithful,  pious  souls,  that  feel  in 


144  THE    RE-ADJUSTMENT    OF    FAITH. 

your  humility  that  these  words  do  not  describe  you — 
that  dare  not,  will  not  permit  yourselves  to  claim  that 
you  are  the  witnesses  of  God's  presence  and  Christ's 
communion — do  not  suppose  that  your  misgivings,  your 
disclaimers,  your  unconscious  piety,  baffles  the  penetra 
tion  or  confounds  the  doctrine  of  him  who  speaks  to 
you.  To  the  simplest,  deepest  piety,  such  as  yours, 
religion  has  become  so  natural,  that  it  loses  its  strange 
ness  ;  life,  so  universally  sacred,  that  its  altar  disap 
pears  ;  God,  so  loved  and  known,  that  his  presence 
pervades  without  notice  ;  Christ,  so  accepted  and 
formed  in  you,  that  his  personality  is  dissolved  in  yours. 
You  know  not  God  and  Christ  and  your  own  soul  apart, 
so  interfused  and  blended  has  obedience,  and  love,  and 
faith,  gradually  made  them.  You  wait  not  the  with 
drawing  of  any  veil  to  reveal  heaven.  It  is  here.  Na 
ture,  society,  providence,  life,  humanity,  all  have  be 
come  divine  !  God  and  Christ  dwell  in  you  arid  you 
in  them  so  fully,  that  they  seem  yourself;  and  it  is 
mainly  in  the  reverence,  the  humility,  the  humanity, 
the  love,  the  truth,  the  goodness  you  know  and  feel, 
which  you  exercise  and  show  forth,  that  it  is  apparent 
to  all  that  you  have  been  with  Jesus,  and  that  God  is 
dwelling  in  your  heart.  Thus  does  the  ripeness  of  piety 
return  to  the  simplicity  of  childhood,  and  religion  ma 
ture  into  the  blessed  unconsciousness  in  which  it  he- 
gins.  Lost  in  God,  identified  with  Christ,  the  noblest 
and  sweetest  faith  is  half  ready  to  doubt  its  own  reality, 
because  the  chains  of  duty  have  lost  all  their  weight, 
and  the  faces  of  the  blessed  ones  all  their  strangeness  ! 
Comfort  yourselves,  ye  lowly  children  of  love,  with 


GOD    AND    CHRIST    IN    THE    HEART.  145 

these  words.  Let  us,  who  are  not  of  them,  aspire  to  a 
piety  which  thus  saturates  the  soul,  and  remember 
who  it  was  that  said,  "If  a  man  love  me,  he  will  keep 
my  words  :  and  my  Father  will  love  him,  and  we  will 
come  unto  him  and  make  our  abode  with  him/' 

MARCH  4,  1854. 


SERMON  X. 

"THE  KINGDOM  OF  GOD." 

"  Whereunto  shall  I  liken  the  kingdom  of  God  ?  It  is  like  leaven,  which 
a  woman  took  and  hid  in  three  measures  of  meal,  till  the  whole  was 
leavened." — LUKE  xiii.  20,  21. 

THE  influence  of  that  kingdom  of  God,  of  which 
the  risen  Saviour  was  the  corner-stone,  upon  the  king 
doms  of  the  world — the  influence  of  Christianity  upon 
the  history  of  man  since  the  first  Easter— could  not  he 
more  aptly  described,  than  in  the  words  of  the  text. 
The  slowly  transforming  power  of  the  Gospel  upon 
society  and  civilization,  has  been  that  of  leaven  upon 
the  lump,  raising  up  and  sweetening  the  whole  mass. 
Our  Saviour  had  previously  compared  the  kingdom  of 
God  to  a  grain  of  mustard  seed,  which  a  man  took  and 
cast  into  his  garden,  and  it  grew  and  waxed  a  great  tree, 
and  the  fowls  of  the  air  lodged  in  the  branches.  We 
have,  then,  a  double  clue  to  the  meaning  our  Lord  in 
tended  to  convey.  It  was  clearly  this  :  that  his  truth 
and  power,  though  feeble  and  unpromising  then — a 
little  leaven,  a  grain  of  mustard  seed — was  destined  in 


147 


its  consequences  to  be  mighty  and  universal — to  leaven 
the  whole  lump — to  wax  a  great  tree  ;  that  this  influ 
ence  was  to  be  gradual  and  unobserved  in  its  pro 
cesses — steady  and  patient  in  its  work — but  thorough 
and  general  in  its  effects. 

I  do  not  propose  to  prove  and  illustrate  this  more 
general  proposition  now,  but  to  advance  to  a  more  per 
sonal  theme. 

What  is  true  of  the  relation  of  the  Church  to  his 
tory  and  civilization,  is  true,  also,  of  the  relation  of 
Christianity  to  the  private  soul.  The  truth  which  the 
Gospel  has  for  the  individual  man,  is  a  truth  which  is 
designed  to  bear  the  same  relation  to  the  natural  and 
congenital  truths  he  already  possesses — -the  influence  the 
Gospel  wishes  to  exert  upon  him,  bears  the  same  rela 
tion  to  his  original  faculties  and  affections — that  the 
leaven  does  to  the  meal.  Keligion — and  we  mean  the 
religion  which  Christ  teaches,  and  illustrates,  and  com 
municates — sustains  to  human  nature  and  human  char 
acter  the  relation  of  the  leaven  to  the  meal  ;  and  vice 
versa,  human  nature  and  human  character  are  to 
religion,  what  the  meal  is  to  the  leaven.  I  know  the 
danger  and  the  dishonesty  of  pressing  scriptural  analo 
gies  beyond  the  intention  of  their  original  employer — 
and  I  do  not  wish  so  much  to  found  what  I  have  to 
say  upon  the  authority  of  our  Lord's  comparison, 
as  to  use  it  for  the  illustration  of  a  truth  evident 
enough  and  quite  demonstrable  from  general  consid 
erations. 

In  the  progress  of  this  discourse — designed  to  correct 
and  refute  prevailing  errors  of  religious  opinion,  not  by 
contending  with  them,  but  by  illuminating  the  region 


148  THE    RE-ADJUSTMENT    OF    FAITH. 

whence  they  spring  and  where  they  reside — I  shall  aim, 
under  the  guidance  of  the  text,  to  show  -three  things : 

1.  That  religion  is  for  man — not  man  for  religion  ; 
the  leaven  for  the  meal — not  the  meal  for  the  leaven. 

2.  That  religion  is  to  be  known  and  valued  for  its 
effects — not  for  itself ;  the  leaven  hid  in  the  meal — 
seen  in  the  loaf,  and  not  in  itself. 

3.  That  religion  is  for  our  complete  humanity  and 
whole  life — not  for  any  separate  or  partial  experience, 
faculty  or  end  ;  the  leaven  hid  in  the  three  measures 
of  meal  till  the  whole  was  leavened. 

1.  In  the  first  place,  religion  is  for  man — not  man 
for  religion.  The  meal  is  greater  than  the  leaven,  and 
the  leaven  is  for  the  sake  of  the  meal — not  the  meal  for 
the  sake  of  the  leaven.  Man's  soul,  man's  nature,  is 
his  great  gift  from  God.  The  original  affections,  the 
powers  of  understanding,  willing,  feeling,  which  the 
Creator  bestowed  upon  his  child,  are  his  great  and  per 
manent  possession,  the  ground  and  essence  of  his  im 
mortality.  By  these,  he  sustains  from  the  very  outset, 
relations  to  nature,  to  humanity,  and  to  God,  which, 
in  importance,  can  never  be  paralleled  by  any  fresh  ac 
quisitions.  These  powers  may  need  waking,  but  wak 
ing  is  not  creating  ;  they  may  need  regulating,  but 
regulating  is  not  bestowing ;  they  may  need  develop 
ment,  but  development  is  not  origination.  When  God 
creates  the  seed-corn — whose  abundant  fruit  is  bruised 
into  meal — he  does  a  work  which  sun  and  rain  cannot 
perform  ;  though  without  their  aid,  the  seed-corn  can 
never  send  up  "  first  the  blade,  then  the  ear,  then  the 
full  corn  in  the  ear."  And,  comparing  the  influences 
•which  God's  spirit  may  exert  upon  the  soul  he  has 


149 


created,  to  the  influence  of  sun  and  rain  upon  the  seed, 
we  are  still  left  with  the  incontrovertible  truth,  that  the 
spirit  performs  a  work  inferior  to  the  work  of  creation  ; 
that  it  gives  opportunity  and  occasion,  furnishes  aids 
and  inducements,  inspirations  and  facilities — hut  not 
faculties,  powers,  affections — mind,  will,  heart, — the 
original  bestowment  of  the  Creator. 

Precisely  what  our  Lord  said  of  the  Sabbath,  there 
fore,  is  to  be  said  of  the  Gospel  ;  the  Gospel  is  made 
for  man — not  man  for  the  Gospel  ;  religion  is  made  for 
man— ^not  man  for  religion.  For,  supposing  man,  or  a 
being  like  man,  to  be  wanting,  religion  would  have  no 
occasion,  and  could  have  no  existence.  God  has  no  re 
ligion.  He. worships  no  one  ;  obeys  no  one.  Eeligion 
is  a  relation — between  man  and  his  Maker.  Man  does 
not  exist,  and  is  not  created,  for  the  purpose  of  having 
this  relation  ;  but  he  has  this  relation  that  he  may 
exist  and  flourish ,  and  find  his  existence  and  faculties  a 
blessing  to  himself.  There  is  no  religion,  and  there  can 
be  no  religion,  therefore,  except  as  there  are  human 
faculties,  affections  and  powers,  to  come  into  right  re 
lations  with  God — any  more  than  there  could  be  navi 
gation,  though  an  ocean  and  the  winds  existed,  if  there 
were  no  ships.  Navigation  implies  ocean,  winds,  and 
ships,  and  is  the  art  growing  out  of  the  relation  of  the 
ship  to  the  ocean.  So  religion  is  the  relation,  and  the 
adjustment  of  the  relation,  between  the  soul  and  its 
Maker. 

You  can  readily  appreciate  this  distinction  by  com 
paring  the  leaven  to  the  meal.  Who  would  ever  have 
thought  of  leaven,,  or  discovered  its  properties,  but  for 
the  sake  of  the  meal?  It  is  of  no  use  or  value  in  itself. 


150  THE    RE-ADJUSTMENT    OF    FAITH. 

It  cannot  be  eaten  or  drunken.  Meal  is  good  even 
without  leaven,  flour  without  yeast  ;  as  life  is  good 
even  without  the  revealed  knowledge  of  God.  But 
leaven  is  useless,  except  for  what  it  does  for  the  meal. 
There  is  one  great  difference  between  leaven  and  re 
ligion,  in  favor  of  leaven — namely,  that  leaven  ex 
ists  independently  of  the  meal,  and  can  be  seen  and 
handled,  though  useless  in  its  proper  self ;  whereas,  re 
ligion,  being  a  relation,  has  no  existence  except  in 
operation.  Nobody  ever  saw  it,  felt  it,  recognized  it, 
except  as  an  affection  of  the  soul,  a  posture  of  the  fac 
ulties.  We  thoughtlessly  talk  of  it,  precisely  as  if  it 
had  a  possible  existence,  independently  of  our  faculties. 
We  might  as  well  talk  of  sight,  as  having  an  existence  in 
dependently  of  the  eye,  or  hearing,  independently  of  the 
ear.  Religion  is  a  state — a  state  of  the  soul — and  it  has 
no  possible  existence  out  of  the  soul,  and  no  residence  any 
where  but  in  the  soul.  When  you  have  thought  with 
out  a  thinker  ;  love,  without  a  lover ;  sensibility,  with 
out  a  sentient  agent  ;  you  may  have  religion  without  a 
human  heart.  Because  God  is  the  source  of  our  souls, 
and  of -all  the  influences  that  bless  and  save  us,  the 
world  is  in  the  vain  habit  of  talking  of  religion,  as  if 
it  were  up  with  God  in  heaven,  in  the  charge  of  the 
Holy  Spirit — like  some  precious  ointment  or  panacea, 
in  the  keeping  of  the  angels — for  which  we  ought  wil 
lingly  to  give  all  we  have  to  obtain  just  enough  to  save 
us.  But  we  might  as  soon  expect  the  sun  to  come  down 
from  heaven,  and  enter  into  the  plants  he  nourishes,  in 
sparks  of  solar  fire,  as  the  Holy  Spirit  to  come  down 
from  heaven  and  enter  into  our  souls  in  some  mysterious 
shape  called  religious  experience.  The  Holy  Spirit  is 


151 


the  name  for  the  enlightening,  uplifting,  blessed  influ 
ence,  which  God,  the  Creator  and  Father  of  the  soul, 
is  ever  exerting  upon  the  moral  and  rational  offspring 
of  his  hand.  It  is  never  more  nor  less  in  itself — but 
only  more  or  less  as  we  receive  and  use  it.  I  do  not 
mean  to  deny  that  we  are  more  in  the  way  of  feeling 
and  recognizing  it  at  some  than  at  other  times — for  our 
whole  moral,  intellectual,  and  spiritual  training  are  very 
dependent  on  opportunities  and  circumstances  beyond 
our  own  control.  But  what  I  would  guard  your  minds 
against,  is  the  impression  that  God  is  ever  any  more  or 
less  graciously  disposed — any  more  or  less  loving  and 
kind,  merciful  and  helpful ;  or  that  there  is  any  place 
where  the  Holy  Spirit  is  any  more  really  present  than 
in  every  human  soul.  As  of  religion,  so  of  the  Holy 
Spirit,  I  say,  man  is  not  made  for  the  Holy  Spirit ;  but 
the  Holy  Spirit  for  man.  It  is  the  name  for  the  gra 
cious  influence  exerted  by  God  over  human  affections  ; 
and  it  has  no  existence  except  in  human  affections, 
being  just  as  much  a  relation  of  God  to  us,  as  religion 
is  a  relation  of  our  souls  to  God.  Kelations,  you  know, 
have  no  existence  in  themselves — they  are  names  for 
the  attitude  or  posture  of  things  or  persons  towards 
each  other.  You  cannot  have  friendship  ^without 
friends  ;  nor  love,  without  lovers  ;  nor  religion,  without 
human  wills  ;  nor  a  holy  spirit,  without  human  hearts. 

Thus  it  is  that  the  leaven  is  for  the  lump,  not  the 
lump  for  the  leaven.  Religion  is  for  the  soul,  not  the 
soul  for  religion.  Religion  is  for  man,  not  man  for  re 
ligion. 

2.  It  is  hid  in  the  soul,  as  leaven  is  hid  in  the  three 
measures  of  meal.  We  do  not  see  the  leaven  when  we 


152  THE    RE- ADJUSTMENT    OF   FAITH. 

cut  into  the  loaf ;  we  do  not  taste  it  when  we  eat  of 
the  bread.  The  loaf  is  not  good,  the  bread  is  not 
wholesome,  in  which  the  leaven  has  a  distinguishable 
appearance  and  flavor.  It  performs  its  office  when  it 
communicates  its  effects,  transfers  its  properties,  and 
merges  itself  in  the  meal.  You  see  the  influence  of 
the  leaven  on  the  loaf;  you  find  the  meal  changed,  im 
proved,  and  made  far  more  palatable  and  wholesome. 
And  this  is  precisely  the  office  of  religion  upon  the 
will,  the  heart,  the  understanding.  It  develops  and 
ripens  qualities  latent  in  humanity,  brings  them  into 
new  and  beautiful  relations  to  each  other,  and  so  effects 
an  indispensable  service.  But  it  has  no  distinct  and 
separate  existence  in  the  soul  apart  from  the  faculties 
and  affections.  It  is  hid  in,  not  fastened  upon,  the 
soul.  It  suffuses  our  nature  with  a  tone,  and  color, 
and  atmosphere,  instead  of  occupying  it  with  a  special 
and  precise  sentiment.  It  penetrates  it  like  a  savor, 
instead  of  puncturing  it  like  a  knife.  The  sword  of 
the  spirit  does  not  leave  its  mark  in  a  wound,  but  in  a 
spiritual  rank  and  knighthood.  It  communicates  to 
him  on  whom  it  is  laid,  a  character,  not  a  scar.  There 
fore  said  our  Master,  speaking  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  "  The 
wind  bloweth  where  it  listeth,  and  thou  hearest  the 
sound  thereof,  but  canst  not  tell  whence  it  cometh  or 
whither  it  goeth.  So  is  every  one  »that  is  born  of  the 
Spirit."  As  the  viewless  air  communicates  an  indis 
pensable  vitality  to  the  blood,  which,  oxygenated  in  the 
lungs,  carries  its  new  life  to  the  heart,  which  again  distri 
butes  it  to  every  member,  joint,  and  limb,  until  the  whole 
body  is  fed  upon  the  heavenly  food  of  the  all-surround 
ing  atmosphere,  so  that  circumambient  and  all-pene- 


153 


trating  spirit  of  God  finds  its  way,  by  the  appropriate 
organs  of  the  soul,  into  the  complete  spiritual  circula 
tion,  and  builds  up  the  immortal  body  of  our  inner 
life.  As  we  breathe,  not  for  the  sake  of  the  lungs,  but 
for  the  sake  of  the  whole  body,  so  we  believe  in  God, 
not  for  the  sake  of  religion,  but  for  the  sake  of  life  ;  we 
pray,  not  to  exercise  our  prayerful  sensibilities,  but  to 
supply  the  wants  of  our  whole  system  ;  we  are  conscien 
tious,  not  because  conscientiousness  is  a  good  thing  in 
itself,  any  more  than  the  multiplication-table  is  a  good 
thing  in  itself;  but  because  conscientiousness  is  the 
arithmetic  and  geometry  of  the  soul — the  scales,  meas 
uring-rod,  guage,  and  road-guide  of  the  total  man — just 
as  the  multiplication  table .  is  the  instrument  of  our 
commercial  and  economic  transactions. 

Now,  my  brethren,  I  do  not  mean,  for  the  sake  of 
withstanding  an  opposite  error,  to  forget  or  deny  that 
religion,  as  an  instrumentality,  deserves  special  atten 
tion.  On  the  contrary,  I  would  earnestly  insist  upon 
this,  and  make  it  the  basis  of  a  more  urgent  application 
of  the  general  principle  I  am  expounding.  My  propo 
sition  is,  that  religion  is  to  be  chiefly  sought  for  and 
valued  in  its  effects  ;  but  not  exclusively.  Instruments 
are  not  ends,  but  they  deserve  attention  as  instruments. 
If  the  bread  is  not  good,  among  other  investigations,  we 
inquire  into  the  state  of  the  leaven  ;  and  it  may  be  ne 
cessary  to  give  a  special  and  deliberate  attention  to  the 
increase  and  improvement  of  its  quality.  If  the  prac 
tical  character  in  an  individual  case  is  not  what  it  ought 
to  be — if  a  human  soul  is  manifestly  disordered,  and 
life  goes  irregularly  and  unsatisfactorily,  it  is  a  very  fit 
ting  and  necessary  question  to  ask,  Is  there  religion  in 


154  THE    RE- ADJUSTMENT    OF    FAITH. 

this  soul,  or  is  the  religion  of  a  right  kind,  genuine  and 
pure  ?  "  By  their  fruits  ye  shall  know  them."  If  the 
fruit  is  meagre,  sour,  and  blighted,  we  begin  to  examine 
the  root  and  the  soil.  And  those  who  know  the  char 
acter  of  soils  and  the  secrets  of  horticulture,  are  very 
necessary  in  helping  us  to  cure  our  sick  orchards.  So 
it  is  with  religion.  It  is  a  special  study  ;  and  the  way 
in  which  it  works  is  a  profoundly  interesting  inquiry. 
From  the  fact  that  it  is  to  the  whole  human  soul  what 
the  air  is  to  the  blood  and  the  blood  to  the  body,  we 
must  not  infer  that  it  is  not  capable  of  being  considered 
by  itself,  analyzed,  purified  from  taint,  carefully  meas 
ured,  and  characterized.  There  is  good  air  and  bad 
air,  stimulating  and  debilitating  air.  The  air  can  be 
weighed,  strained,  medicated,  rarified,  dcnsified.  We 
move  our  sick  from  moist  to  dry  air,  from  fresh  to  salt, 
from  cold  to  hot,  from  dense  to  rare.  Yet  we  expect 
the  air,  under  all  circumstances,  to  produce  its  effects, 
only  as  it  enters  into  the  whole  tissues  and  organism  of 
the  body.  So  it  is  with  religion.  Its  work  lies  in  its 
hidden  influence  and  circulation.  But  it  is  itself  capa 
ble  of  examination  as  a  theory,  a  creed,  a  discipline, 
an  influence.  It  may  be  examined  by  the  intellect  as  a 
system  of  opinions  ;  it  may  be  examined  by  the  affec 
tions  as  a  mode  of  feeling  ;  it  may  be  examined  by  the 
will  as  a  kind  of  motive.  And  there  are  times  and  sea 
sons  when  it  deserves  the  same  attention  as  the  carpen 
ter's  or  farmer's  tools,  the  surveyor's  instruments,  the 
sailor's  art  of  navigation,  the  painter's  colors  and  brush 
es.  According  as  these  are  in  order  or  in  disorder,  good 
or  bad,  correct  or  false,  will  the  products  created  by 
their  aid  usually  be.  We  attend  to  the  quality  of  our 


155 

bodily  food ;  why  not  of  our  spiritual  ?  Oftentimes, 
therefore,  it  is  observed  that  those  who  insist  that  re 
ligion  is  a  life,  forget  that  it  is  also  the  food  of  life, 
which  must  be  regularly  provided,  carefully  chosen,  and 
systematically  taken. 

I  insist  that  we  need  times  and  seasons  to  think 
specially  of  our  relations  to  God  ;  opportunities  and  oc-t 
casions  to  increase  our  acquaintance  with  Christ ;  hab 
its  of  prayer  and  meditation,  to  secure  our  full  recogni 
tion  of  our  duty  and  destiny  ;  times  of  self-examination 
and  careful  inquisition  into  our  moral  and  spiritual 
state.  And  it  seems  natural  to  me  that  our  purely  and 
specifically  religious  apparatus,  our  theological  opin 
ions,  modes  of  worship,  habits  of  self-discipline,  should, 
at  particular  dates  and  crises,  have  an  engrossing  in 
terest  and  care.  But  we  must  not  allow  this  necessity 
for  a  moment  to  mislead  us  as  to  the  nature  of  the  re 
lation  which  religion,  considered  as  an  instrument,  a 
tool,  a  discipline,  bears  to  life  itself,  considered  as  the 
real  interest.  The  tool  is  for  the  work,  the  food  is  for 
the  body,  and  religion,  however  important,  is  the  leaven, 
not  the  meal.  Society  at  this  time  seems  to  be  divided 
between  those  on  the  one  hand  disposed  to  mistake  the 
leaven  for  the  meal,  the  sign  for  the  thing  signified,  the 
tools  for  the  architecture  and  house  ;  and  those,  on  the 
other  hand,  disposed  to  say  that  the  meal  is  all  in  all  ; 
loaf  and  leaven  too  ;  that  the  sign  is  of  no  use,  the 
tools  of  no  account  ;  the  thing  signified — namely,  char 
acter — being  the  only  and  all-engrossing  object.  But 
why  rush  into  extremes  ?  Why  decry  or  neglect  either 
signs,  or  things  signified  ?  The  workman  is  known  by 
his  tools,  as  well  as  by  his  fabric.  The  religious  man 


156  THE    BE- ADJUSTMENT    OF   FAITH. 

may  be  known  by  his  religious  opinions,  methods,  and 
observances,  as  well  as  by  his  good  works,  his  balanced 
character,  his  stable  and  reliable  virtue,  his  humane  and 
self-sacrificing  dispositions.  And  I  confess,  with  all  my 
preference  for  fruit,  I  expect  little* where  no  attention 
is  paid  to  seed  and  culture.  Why  neglect  the  purity, 
the  freshness,  and  the  active  character  of  the  leaven, 
because  it  is  not  the  meal  ?  Why  neglect  prayer, 
meditation,  self-searching,  the  reading  of  holy  books, 
the  assiduous  attendance  on  religious  instruction,  be 
cause  these  are  not  the  ends,  but  only  the  means  of  a 
true  life — the  seed  and  culture,  not  the  soil,  the  tree, 
nor  the  fruit  ? 

No  doubt  this  unfortunate  tendency  is  due  to  a  strong 
sense  of  the  evil  of  the  other  and  more  common  ex 
treme,  the  evil  of  mistaking  religious  apparatus,  for  the 
religious  life  ;  religious  usages  and  methods,  for  religious 
results  ;  the  sensibilities  and  practices  of  a  directly  re 
ligious  occupation,  for  the  influence  and  application  of 
these  emotions  and  usages  to  the  ordinary  and  complete 
life.  The  world  has  been  for  ages  under  the  delusion 
that  in  religion  the  means  are  the  ends  ;  that  there  is 
a  virtue  in  believing  certain  propositions,  without  any 
regard  to  the  bearing  of  those  propositions  on  life  ;  a 
virtue  in  a  certain  class  of  moods  and  emotions,  without 
any  regard  to  their  influence  on  all  the  other  moods  and 
emotions  of  the  soul  ;  that  religion  has  a  value  inde 
pendent  of  character,  separate  from  goodness,  distinct 
from  morality,  apart  from  ordinary  life.  And  the  re 
sults  of  this  old  and  obstinate  superstition  are  still  seen 
in  the  popular  religious  opinions  of  our  own  day.  The 
leaven  is  kept  apart  from  the  loaf,  and  valued  for  it- 


157 

self,  and  not  for  its  use.  People  still  talk  of  getting 
religion,  as  though  it  were  a  peculiar  kind  of  coin,  alone 
receivable  at  the  heavenly  toll-gate  ;  of  experiencing 
religion,  as  though  it  were  experiencing  an  electric 
shock  ;  of  an  interest  in  Christ,  as  a  shareholder  does 
of  his  stock  in  some  prosperous  venture.  The  kingdom 
of  heaven,  which  Christ  declared  to  be  within  us,  is 
banished  to  the  skies.  God,  whom  our  Lord  pro 
nounced  everywhere  present,  and  especially  in  the  soul 
of  man,  his  chosen  temple,  is  driven  away,  up  beyond 
the  stars.  Christ,  present  wherever  two  or  three  are 
gathered  in  his  name,  is  exiled  to  a  great  white  throne. 
The  use  of  religion  is  not,  according  to  this  childish  and 
shallow  faith,  that  we  may  acquire,  by  its  means,  a 
noble,  disinterested,  loving  character,  and  lead  a  useful, 
generous,  and  pure  life,  showing  forth  God's  glory  in 
the  soul,  and  forming  Christ  within,  but  that  through 
it  we  may  escape  some  impending  wrath,  and  secure 
some  promised  bliss  ;  keep  out  of  hell,  and  get  into 
heaven — heaven  and  hell  being  not  frames  of  mind  and 
states  of  being,  but  a  pit  and  a  palace,  mere  external 
places.  The  greatest  pains  is  taken  to  distinguish  be 
tween  noble,  generous,  and  exalted  deeds,  springing 
from  motives  not  distinctly  felt  to  be  religious,  and 
the  peculiar  frames  of  feeling  recognized  by  some  pious 
free-masonry,  as  the  special  fruits  of  the  Spirit. 

A  popular  preacher,  recently  addressing  a  vast  as 
sembly,  said,  after  describing  the  noble  self-forgetfulness 
of  a  fireanan,  who  saved  the  life  of  a  child  by  an  act  of 
glorious  daring,  "  But  that  man,  who  virtually  gave  his 
life — mark,  gentlemen,  noble,  glorious,  almost  Godlike 
as  was  his  deed — had  he  been  lost,  (in  his  effort,)  would 


158  THE    RE-ADJUSTMENT    OF    FAITH. 

have  been  banished  from  God  and  from  the  glory  of  his 
power  forever  :  he  was  without  religion." 

Now,  I  do  not  object  to  this  statement,  which  must 
have  been  instinctively  and  shudderingly  repelled  by 
all  who  heard  it,  because  it  failed  to  accept  this  heroic 
act  as  a  proof  of  piety,  but  because  of  the  implications 
of  this  style  of  thought.  I  do  not  say  that  this  heroic 
act  proved  this  noble  fireman  to  be  religious,  and  I 
even  think  it  takes  less  religion  to  do  grand  acts  of  im 
pulse  than  to  live  a  life  of  patient  duty.  But  would 
not  this  rash  teacher  have  said  of  a  life  of  steady  worth 
and  sober  integrity,  governed  passions,  mild,  chastened 
affections,  expansive  feelings,  and  spotless  moral  excel 
lency,  provided  its  subject  had  been  unable  to  utter  the 
shibboleth  of  a  creed,  to  avow  a  faith  in  the  efficacy  of 
a  Saviour's  atoning  blood,  and  to  assert  a  special  re 
ligious  experience,  precisely  what-  he  said  of  the  gener 
ous  fireman :  that  dying,  "  he  would  be  banished  from 
God  and  the  glory  of  his  power  forever,  for  he  was 
without  religion  "  ?  What,  then,  is  religion,  if  the  no 
blest  deeds  can  be  done  without  it,  and  the  lowliest  and 
most  constant  duties  can  be  performed  in  its  complete 
absence  ?  It  must  be  something  against  which  gener 
ous  and  just  natures  will  revolt.  It  must  be  something 
which  men  must  be  heated  in  crowds,  and  put  beyond 
the  control  of  reason  and  common  sense,  before  they 
will  believe  or  receive  it.  It  must  be  a  subject  of  in 
flammatory  appeal  and  contagious  excitement,  and  oc 
casional  impassioned  attention  ;  not  "  our  reasonable 
service,"  not  our  sober,  intelligible,  every-day  duty. 
This  is  not  the  religion  which  Christ  described,  when 
he  said,  The  kingdom  of  God  is  like  leaven,  which  a 


"  THE    KINGDOM    OF    GOD."  159 

woman  took  and  hid  in  three  measures  of  meal !  Alas  ! 
there  has  perhaps  been  least  of  true  religion  when  re 
ligious  apparatus  and  religious  profession,  and  religious 
ostentation  and  noise,  have  been  most  rife.  When  the 
aim  is  to  build  up  the  Church,  not  the  order,  truth, 
and  purity  of  society,  to  carry  men  into  the  Church  in 
stead  of  carrying  the  Church  into  them,  to  give  great 
and  special  prominence  to  religious  usages,  and  forms, 
and  acts — instead  of  making  the  ordinary  acts  and  mo 
tives  of  life,  pure,  and  loyal,  and  pious,  then  there  is 
nothing  vital,  because  there  is  nothing  hidden  about 
religion.  Religion  is  not  doing  its  best  work,  when  it 
attracts  attention  in  its  own  character,  but  only  when 
it  is  felt  in  its  general  effects  on  the  life  and  conversa 
tion  ;  as  a  well  is  not  fulfilling  its  appointed  duty  when 
we  are  building  a  showy  well-house  over  it,  but  when  it  is 
lending  its  almost  unrecognized  aid  to  every  requirement 
of  thirst,  cleanliness,  health  and  comfort,,  in  the  house 
hold. 

3.  The  kingdom  of  God  is  like  leaven,  which  a 
woman  took  and  hid  in  three  measures  of  meal,  till  the 
whole  was  leavened. 

Religion,  I  have  said,  1,  is  for  the  soul,  not  the  soul 
for  religion.  It  is  the  leaven,  not  the  lump.  2.  Re 
ligion  is  an  influence,  not  a  result ;  dew  and  sunshine, 
not  fruit.  It  is  hid  in  the  meal,  not  seen  in  the  loaf. 
3.  Religion,  I  now  add,  has  universal,  not  limited  and 
partial  ends.  It  is  like  leaven,  which  a  woman  took  and 
hid  in  three  measures  of  mea!3  till  the  whole  was  leav 
ened.  Why  three  and  not  one,  but  to  intimate  the 
manifold  character  of  the  operation  ?  The  sense  of 
God's  presence,  the  aid  of  his  Spirit,  the  example  and 


160  THE    KE-ADJUSTMENT    OF    FAITH. 

inspiration  of  his  Son,  the  obligations  of  conscience,  the 
attractions  of  immortality,  these  are  designed  to  exert 
a  universal  influence  upon  the  body,  soul  and  spirit  ; 
the  mind,  heart,  and  will  ;  the  private,  the  social,  and 
the  public  man  ;  upon  man  in  his  relations  to  the  ex 
ternal,  the  internal,  and  the  eternal — in  short,  on 
every  strand  in  the  three-fold  cord  that  binds  his  various 
being.  There  is  a  perpetual  tendency  to  separate  man's 
interests  and  concerns  into  secular  and  sacred  ;  religious 
and  unreligious,  mortal  and  immortal,  temporary  and 
eternal.  And,  for  certain  ends,  the  discrimination  is 
allowable  and  important.  But  only  as  a  method — as 
one  might  distinguish  between  the  arteries  and  veins  ; 
the  nerves  and  muscles  ;  the  bones  and  ligaments ;  the 
right  and  left  ventricles  in  the  heart ;  all  parts  of  the 
one  inseparable  living  body.  It  is  only  dead  bodies  in 
which  any  real  division  can  be  made.  And  it  is  only  in 
dead  creeds  and  dead  bodies  of  divinity,  only  on  paper 
and  parchment,  that  any  division  can  be  made  between 
secular  and  sacred,  religious  and  unreligious  interests. 
The  soul  is  never  secular  ;  life  is  never  temporal. 
There  are  no  duties  which  are  not  religious  duties  ;  as 
there  are  no  interests  which  are  not  religious  interests. 
The  human  body,  for  instance,  is  just  as  much  God's 
work  as  the  human  soul.  It  has  a  religion — certain 
laws  and  conditions  of  health  and  usefulness — which 
will  not  be  observed  except  under  the  direction  and 
control  of  reason  and  conscience  supported  and  inspired 
by  allegiance  to  God  aiid  Christ.  There  has  been  a 
vast  deal  of  superstition  in  regard  to  the  body.  It  has 
been  treated  with  something  of  the  same  mistaken  abuse 
that  is  still  poured  upon  the  soul.  To  lash,  and  starve, 


161 


and  macerate  and  afflict  the  body,  Las  been  deemed  use 
ful  to  the  soul,  and  acceptable  to  God  ;  and  every  form 
of  mortification  has  been  practised  to  expel  its  evil 
lusts,  and  through  its  tortures,  to  bless  and  save  the 
soul.  Why  has  it  not  been  understood,  that  to  develop 
and  perfect  the  human  frame  and  make  it  strong,  beau 
tiful,  supple,  enduring — to  teach  it  the  obedience  of  an 
intelligent,  helpful,  ready  servant,  was  the  true  way  to 
honor  its  maker  and  serve  the  body's  master,  the  soul  ? 
Good  masters  do  not  abuse  their  servants.  Besides,  a 
true  care  of  the  body,  is,  in  the  end,  even  a  severer  dis 
cipline,  whether  of  body  or  soul,  than  a  periodical  se 
verity.  Strict  temperance  and  due  exercise  are  greater 
draughts  on  moral  resolution  and  self-discipline  than 
spiked  girdles  and  sackcloth — than  long  fasts  and  many 
stripes. 

And  as  of  the  body,  so  of  the  soul ;  the  intellect  is 
as  much  a  part  of  the  soul  as  the  heart.  To  think,  is 
as  much  a  religious  duty  as  to  love.  That  is  to  say, 
thought  itself  has  a  religion.  Candor,  patience,  cohe 
rency,  modesty,  aspiration,  belong  to  the  exercises  of 
reason  as  much  as  to  the  exercises  of  charity.  How 
vain,  then,  is  the  prejudice  which  would  drive  reason 
out  of  the  temple  of  the  soul,  as  a  profane  intruder  into 
God's  presence  ?  And  so  the  tastes,  the  pleasure-seek 
ing  propensities,  the  natural  appetites  and  passions — 
these  are  just  as  divine  in  their  origin,  just  as  sacred  in 
their  place,  as  the  motions  of  the  conscience  or  the  af 
fections  of  the  heart.  There  is  a  religion  of  beauty  and 
taste,  as  well  as  a  religion  of  duty  and  charity.  That 
is  to  say,  we  can  and  we  must  exercise  our  feelings  of 
beauty  and  our  aptitudes  and  capacities  for  pleasure, 


162  THE    RE-ADJUSTMENT    OF   FAITH. 

under  a  sense  of  their  origin  in  God's  nature  and  God's 
beneficence,  and  recognize  their  allegiance  to  the  same 
plan  and  the  same  authority,  which  works  in  and  reigns 
over  the  more  obviously  moral  part  of  our  Nature. 

And  so  of  external  Nature,  the  material  universe, 
the  world  we  live  in.  It  is  not  properly  to  be  opposed 
to  the  world  we  are  going  to,  or  to  the  inner  world  of 
the  spiritual  senses.  Matter  is  not  the  opposite,  or  the 
foe  of  spirit ;  it  is  rather  its  shadow  and  echo.  The  life 
that  now  is,  is  not  the  antagonist  and  contrast  of  the 
life  that  is  to  be  ;  but  its  infancy  and  boyhood,  the  be 
ginning  of  what  shall  never  end. 

And  so,  our  ordinary  pursuits,  our  business,  our 
pleasure,  our  politics,  our  literature,  our  buying  and 
selling,  and  visiting,  and  eating,  and  dressing,  are  not 
the  base  and  low  necessities  of  our  mortal  state,  against 
which  the  noble  and  exalting  aspirations  of  our  immor 
tal  state  {ire  steadily  protesting  and  striving ;  but 
rather  the  divinely-given  opportunities  and  occasions, 
in  which  our  various  powers,  tastes  and  aptitudes  find 
their  culture  and  growth — and  the  real  channels  into 
which  our  religious  feelings  and  duty  to  God  and  Christ 
and  ourselves,  should  send  their  sanctifying,  chastening, 
and  elevating  tides. 

God  means  us  to  be  religious  through  and  through. 
Koligious  in  our  thoughts,  affections,  pleasures,  business, 
tastes.  And  no  one  who  does  not  hope  and  strive  to 
bring  his  whole  nature  into  a  divine  loyalty  and  Chris 
tian,  subjection,  has  fitly  conceived  his  vocation  as  a 
Christian.  It  is  not  that  we  are  to  be  equally  serious, 
much  less  equally  devout,  at  all  times.  Serious  and 
devout  feelings  are  as  much  out  of  place  in  times  of  re- 


"  THE    KINGDOM    OF    GOD."  163 

Taxation  and  social  gayety,  as  laughter  and  jest  are  in 
the  house  of  prayer,  or  in  the  closet  of  self-examination. 
The  loyalty  to  religion  to  be  shown  in  pleasure — is  in 
recognizing  the  faculties  and  tastes  for  pleasure  as  being 
divine  in  their  origin,  and  designed  to  bring  parts  of  God's 
character  and  government,  and  of  our  own  wonderful 
and  divinely-framed  constitution,  into  view  and  exer 
cise  ;  is,  in  keeping  pleasure  within  the  bounds  of 
health,  strength  and  usefulness  ;  is,  in  insisting  that  it 
shall  observe  the  profoundest  deference  to  right,  purity 
and  goodness,  in  its  form  and  spirit.  Nor  is  the  religion 
to  be  shown  in  business,  to  consist  in  talking  religion 
over  the  counter  ;  nor  in  running  from  the  office  to  the 
prayer-meeting  ;  nor  in  carrying  religious  tracts  within 
the  leaves  of  the  ledger,  or  in  the  folds  of  the  pocket- 
book  ;  but  in  dealing  with  scrupulous  integrity,  exact 
justice  and  thorough  kindness  with  our  fellow-men,  in 
moderating  the  desire  of  gain,  in  consecrating  success 
to  God's  glory  and  man's  welfare,  and  in  seeing  the  di 
vine  significance  of  trade  and  commerce,  so  grand  and 
worthy  of  God  in  their  laws,  and  in  connection  with  the 
education  of  humanity  and  the  triumph  of  liberty, 
peace  and  charity. 

My  brethren,  what  can  be  so  much  needed  at  this 
time  as  the  proper  understanding  of  the  broad,  and 
deep,  and  high  ground  covered  by  the  kingdom  of  God  ? 
There  is  in  the  late  religious  excitement — of  which 
much  good,  and  more  hope  of  good  is  to  be  predicated 
— an  unmistakable  evidence  of  a  profound  popular  ig 
norance  in  regard  to  the  very  nature  of  religion.  Its 
relation  to  human  nature,  to  human  life  and  to  human 


164  THE    RE-ADJUSTMENT    OF    FAITH. 

prospects — all,  all  need  the  most  pains-taking  and  de 
tailed  explanation. 

What  can  fill  one  with  a  more  saddening  sense  of 
the  state  of  religious  prejudice  and  darkness  among 
even  educated  minds,  than  to  be  met  by  an  accom 
plished,  acute  and  worthy  man,  who  stops  to  thank 
you,  as  for  a  new  truth,  on  having  somewhere  read  a 
report  of  your  saying  that  the  proper  sphere  for  the 
display  of  religious  principle  and  religious  feeling,  is 
in  the  ordinary  duties  and  ordinary  intercourse  of  life  ! 
or  to  see  a  man,  like  the  admirable  Arthur  Helps — the 
author  of  some  of  the  best  and  wisest  books  in  our  lan 
guage,  cautiously  suggesting,  that  the  intellect  may 
possibly  be  a  part  of  the  soul,  and  that  our  intellectual 
acquirements  may  even  possibly  be  of  some  value  in 
another  state  of  existence  ?  And  this  is  quoted  into  a 
literary  journal  of  the  day,  as  a  new  and  grand  sugges 
tion — a  little  eccentric,  perhaps,  but  startling  and  im 
portant  !  What  must  be  the  state  of  popular  feeling 
in  regard  to  the  nature  and  character  of  the  soul  and 
its  destiny,  the  relation  of  the  intellectual  and  moral 
powers,  the  meaning  of  life,  the  significance  of  nature, 
the  bearing  of  religion  as  an  institution  upon  religion 
as  a  state  of  character,  or  of  religion  as  an  emotion  upon 
religion  as  a  universal  allegiance  of  the  powers  of  body 
and  soul — tastes,  appetites,  affections,  thoughts — to 
their  Maker,  God,  and  to  their  first  friend — their  pattern, 
guide  and  Saviour — Christ  ?  The  implications  of  false 
and  shallow  reasoning,  partial  observation,  intellectual 
groping,  moral  obliquity,  spiritual  ignorance — in  short, 
of  puerility  and  superstition — involved  in  a  large  part  of 
the  appeals,  the  preaching,  the  cant  terms,  the  popular 


"  THE   KINGDOM   OF   GOD."  165 

dogmas,  the  current  conversation  of  Christendom — are 
discouraging  evidences,  how  backward  is  the  religious 
thought  of  our  day,  as  compared  with  its  general  thought ; 
how  little  harmony  there  is  between  our  schools  and  our 
churches  ;  our  thinkers  and  our  religious  guides  ;  our  po 
litical  and  national  institutions  and  our  popular  theology. 
It  is  not  Christianity — the  rational,  thorough,  all-embra 
cing  Gospel  of  Christ — which  throws  its  blessed  sanctities 
over  and  around  our  whole  humanity — which  owns  and 
consecrates  our  whole  nature  and  our  whole  life — which 
is  thus  taught.  It  is  a  system  which  is  narrower  than 
Judaism — and  compared  with  which  Komanism  is  a 
princely  and  magnificent  theology.  I  say  advisedly,  that 
if  Protestantism  endorses  the  vulgar  notions  of  a  God- 
cursed  world — a  fallen  race — a  commercial  atonement 
— a  doomed  and  hell-devoted  humanity — a  mysterious 
conversion — a  church,  which  is  a  sort  of  life-boat,  hang 
ing  round  a  wreck,  that  may  carry  off  a  few  women  and 
selfishly-affrighted  men — leaving  the  bolder,  braver, 
larger  proportion  to  go  down  with  the  ship  ;  if  this  be 
the  sum  and  substance  of  religion — if  these  notions  be 
the  grounds  of  the  late  religious  excitement  and  the  doc 
trines  which  gave  it  power — then,  it  is  not  so  true  to 
human  nature,  its  wants  and  woes,  its  various  and  mani 
fold  tastes,  talents  and  faculties — as  the  old  Catholic 
system — and  that,  instead  of  trembling  at  the  growth 
and  prospects  of  Romanism  in  this  country,  we  should 
more  reasonably  rejoice  in  its  triumphs,  as  the  worthier 
occupant  of  the  confidence  and  affections  of  the  peo 
ple.  But  this  narrow  system,  with  all  its  arrogant 
claims  to  be  the  only  Evangelical  faith,  is  not  Protes 
tantism  ;  or,  rather,  it  is  mere  Protestantism.  It  has 


166  THE   RE-ADJUSTMENT    OF    FAITH. 

been  from  its  origin  too  busy  in  protesting  against  Ro 
manism,  to  affirm  the  grander  and  more  practical  truths 
of  a  positive  religion,  and  we  have  imitated  it  too  well 
in  spending  our  time  in  protesting  against  this  mere 
Protestantism.  Let  us  all  arouse  ourselves  to  the  duty 
of  asserting  the  noble  grandeur  and  sublime  simplicity 
of  the  Gospel  of  Christ — the  friend  of  free  thought, 
the  exalter  of  human  nature,  the  interpreter  and  con- 
secrator  of  common  life — the  emancipator  of  the  soul 
from  mere  dogmas,  and  the  inaugurator  of  a  divine  mo 
rality  and  heaven-inspired  order  and  harmony,  in  the 
practical  character  and  in  the  daily  life  of  men. 

Thus  alone,  will  Christ's  kingdom  come.  For  then 
it  will  be  like  the  leaven,  which  a  woman  took  and  hid 
in  three  measures  of  meal,  till  the  ivlwle  was  leavened. 

MAY  9,  1858. 


SERMON  XI. 

RELIGION  CONSIDERED  AS    A  REFUGE  FROM  THE  MYSTERY 
OF  EVIL. 

"I — beseech  you,  by  the  meekness  and  gentleness  of  Christ." — 2  COB. 
x.  1. 

IT  is  a  great  argument  !  the  one  mighty  motive  by 
which  God  seeks  to  convince  and  convert  the  world, 
"  the  meekness  and  gentleness  of  Christ."  Christ's 
character — is  God's  beseeching  message  to  humanity. 
Instead  of  threats  and  bribes,  of  warnings  and  re 
proaches,  of  a  code  of  laws  written  in  blood,  or  a  table 
of  commandments  thundered  from  the  burning  mount, 
the  Almighty  goodness  sets  his  Son  in  the  midst  of  men 
— the  Son  of  Omnipotence,  of  infinite  sovereignty,  but 
clothed  in  meekness  and  gentleness — and  waits  to  see 
the  effect  of  such  goodness,  the  influence  of  such  love 
liness,  upon  the  hearts  of  mankind. 

It  was  no  new  experiment  in  principle,  my  brethren  ! 
How  could  it  be  ?  For  is  not  the  unchangeable  God 
the  author  of  the  Gospel,  and  was  not  the  same  char 
acter,  behind  all  the  Almighty's  dealings,  which  more 
evidently  appeared  in  his  express  likeness,  our  Saviour  ? 

It  is  the  glorious  work  of  Christ's  meekness  and 


168  THE    RE-ADJUSTMENT    OF    FAITH. 

gentleness,  that  it  is  the  image  and  shadow  of  God's  own 
merciful  and  gentle  character.  It  would  be  worth  little 
to  us,  if  it  did  not  imply  and  establish  that  blessed 
truth.  And,  if  without  a  vain  intention  of  glorifying 
later  manifestations  of  the  divine  character  by  disparag 
ing  earlier  ones,  we  study  *the  spirit  and  temper  of  the 
old  dispensations,  we  shall  find  that  the  loving-kindness 
and  tender  mercy  of  the  Lord,  his  patience  and  forgiv- 
ingness,  are  the  characteristic  qualities  of  all  his  direct 
dealings  and  communications  with  men,  and  have  al 
ways  been  the  arguments  by  which  he  has  sought  to 
win  the  world. 

"  But  surely,  you  do  not  mean  to  say,"  I  hear  some 
one  interpose,  "  that  the  moral  government  of  the 
world,  the  constitution  of  things  of  which  God  is  au 
thor  and  upholder,  reveal  him  exclusively  as  a  gentle 
and  tender  being,  unwilling  to  give  pain,  reluctant  to 
punish,  trusting  only  to  goodness  and  forbearance  for 
his  influence  over  us  ?" 

Certainly,  I  do  not  mean  to  deny,  or  to  underrate, 
the  solemn  issues  of  right  and  wrong,  the  great  equi 
poise  of  pleasure  and  pain,  the  vast  sum  of  suffering 
and  evil  in  the  universe.  Surely,  I  cannot  forget  the 
awfulness  of  constitution  which  belongs  to  the  human 
soul — its  exposure  to  temptation,  the  power  of  its  pas 
sions,  its  sensibility  to  sorrow  and  capacity  of  wrong, 
with  all  the  dreadful  force  of  circumstances  so  often 
preying  upon  it  !  Who  can  conceal,  or  wishes  to  con 
ceal,  the  dark  and  dreadful  history  of  our  race — its  pub 
lic  wars,  its  private  crimes,  its  selfishness  and  sins  ?  or 
who  will  undertake  to  cover  its  present  half-barbarous 
and  half-wicked  state  !  Can  we  listen  with  patience  to 


RELIGION    A    EEFUGE    FROM    EVIL.  169 

the  sophistry  that  would  extenuate,  or  the  smoothness 
that  would  hide,  the  darkness  of  History's  great  prob 
lem,  or  to  the  harpings  of  the  pleasant  instrument  that 
would  persuade  us  that  humanity  is  characteristically 
attuned  to  virtue  and  purity.  Alas  !  my  brethren  ! 
there  can  be  no  exaggeration  in  the  statement  of  the 
difficulty  which  hangs  over  this  great  fact  of  evil  in 
God's  universe,  and  in  our  own  nature  which  God  has 
made.  The  evil  in  the  world  has  always  been,  and  con 
tinues  to  be,  immense;  the  evil  in  us  has  always  been,  and 
continues  to  be,  immeasurable.  The  constitution  of 
things,  the  nature  God  has  given  us,  the  circumstances  in 
which  he  has  placed  us,  are  things  which  we  must  ac 
cept  as  facts — and  facts  which  it  is  beyond  our  present 
faculties  to  reconcile  and  account  for.  If  any  man  think 
he  has  solved  the  problem  of  evil,  and  reconciled  its  be 
ginning  or  its  continuance  in  the  universe,  with  the  sup 
position  of  the  Divine  Omnipotence  and  Infinite  Benev 
olence,  he  has  nothing  left  to  learn,  and  may,  indeed, 
boast  of  understanding  the  Almighty  to  perfection. 
But  what  theory,  boasting  such  a  success,  does  any 
thing  but  give  us  a  juggle  of  words  ! 

No  !  my  brethren,  the  actual  condition  of  things, 
this  world  of  mingled  good  and  evil,  vice  and  virtue, 
temptation  and  support — is  a  profound  and  insoluble 
mystery — which  philosophy  and  religion  make  no  ap 
proaches  to  dissipate.  No  wisdom  can  say  why  a  season 
of  moral  discipline  was  requisite  for  us,  more  than  for 
the  spiritual  beings  whom  we  suppose  never  to  have 
sinned.  Seeing  God  is  omnipotent,  why  were  we  not 
all  created  with  angelic  affections,  a  strength  of  will 
which  could  not  be  tempted,  a  native  purity  that  nothing 
8 


170  THE    RE-ADJUSTMENT    OF    FAITH. 

could  soil?  Our  only  relief  is  to  reflect  that  created 
beings  must  always  somewhere  come  to  what  is  un 
known  and  inexplicable — and  we  find  support  in  the 
reasonable  conviction,  that  what  we  cannot  fathom,  is 
not  necessarily  unfathomable,  what  we  cannot  under 
stand  and  reconcile  is  not  inherently  irreconcilable — 
but  has  its  interpreter  in  the  Infinite  mind. . 

My  brethren,  you  will  not  misunderstand  me  when 
I  am  really  trying  to  help  you.  The  world,  in  its  very 
constitution,  affords  innumerable  proofs  of  the  benevo 
lence  of  the  Creator.  But  do  you  not  see  that  a  be 
nevolence  which  has  to  be  substantiated  by' evidence, 
confesses  difficulty  and  acknowledges  evil  ?  This  evil 
I  do  not  choose  to  deny  or  conceal ;  for  it  is  the  very 
thing  which  makes  religion  necessary.  I  will  not  be  so 
presumptuous  as  to  say  I  see  the  reason  why  human 
nature  is  so  weak,  and  temptation  so  strong,  and  wick 
edness  so  common,  and  man's  moral  being  so  often  de 
graded.  But  these  facts  are  the  very  basis  of  all  we 
know  of  religion.  If  human  nature  were  strong,  and 
temptation  powerless,  and  virtue  universal,  and  man 
erect  and  pure,  what  occasion  should  we  have  to  know 
God,  or  to  think  about  God  ?  We  should  be  all  we 
could  be  and  have  all  we  wanted,  and  religion,  which  is 
dependence,  and  a  cry  for  mercy  and  help,  and  a  guid 
ance  and  support  under  difficulty,  and  an  aspiration 
and  struggle  upwards,  would  have  no  place,  and  need 
no  existence  !  And  do  I  propose  this  as  our  solution 
of  the  problem  ?  that  we  were  made  weak  that  we 
might  lean  on  God,  and  sinful  that  we  might  be  for 
given,  and  ignorant  that  we  might  learn  the  joy  of 
faith  ?  No  !  plausible  as  it  might  sound,  I  will  not 


RELIGION    A    REFUGE    FROM    EVIL.  171 

suppose  defects  created  only  that  they  might  be  cor 
rected,  and  wants  originated  that  they  might  be  sup 
plied.  Far  rather  let  us,  in  the  simplicity  and  modesty 
that  becomes  our  limited  faculties,  acknowledge  and 
bow  ourselves  before  the  immense  and  unsounded  mys 
tery  of  our  condition,  as  tempted,  and  morally  imper 
fect,  and  exposed,  and  often  wretched  beings  !  Why 
we  should  have  been  made  or  left  so,  defies  explanation 
from  human  powers.  But  this  is  the  fact,  and  it  is  a 
fact  which  is  the  basis  of  religion  ;  for  man's  call  on 
God  has  sprung  from  his  sense  of  sin  and  his  experience 
of  evil.  He  has  appealed  from  his  condition  and  from 
himself  to  One  greater  than  himself,  free  from  his  per 
plexities,  and  deemed  able  to  help  him.  It  is  the  sor 
row  of  the  world  that  has  built  its  altars,  the  wail  of 
woe  that  has  made  its  liturgies.  Weakness,  want, 
guilt,  sorrow,  doubt,  and  despair,  have  turned  from 
earth  to  heaven,  from  the  human  to  the  divine,  and 
have  implored  strength,  consolation,  light,  deliverance, 
in  the  midst  of  darkness  and  calamity,  sinfulness  and 
shame. 

And  how  has  this  cry  been  answered  ?  Allowing — 
nay,  how  can  we  but  allow  ? — that  man  and  life  are 
full  of  difficulty  and  doubt,  weakness  and  wrong,  so  far 
as  the  working  of  the  moral  and  spiritual  life  is  con 
cerned,  must  we  not  say,  that  whatever  obscurity  may 
hang  around  the  benevolence  of  God  viewed  as  our 
original  Creator,  however  equivocal  his  will  may  there 
appear  to  be  in  respect  to  our  happiness  and  moral  ex 
cellency — however  we  may  have  gotten  into  this  diffi 
culty  of  moral  and  physical  evil — God  as  our  present 
Father,  God  as  he  is  revealed,  is  revealed  wholly  and 


172  THE    RE-ADJUSTMENT    OF    FAITH. 

exclusively  as  our  friend  and  helper — as  one  who  is  do 
ing  the  utmost,  within  the  limits  of  our  nature  and  cir 
cumstances,  to  lift  us  out  of  our  difficulties,  to  repair 
our  misfortunes,  to  recover  us,  and  make  up,  in  the  best 
and  most  tender  manner,  for  our  sorrows  and  struggles. 
You  may  ask  why  Infinite  power,  which  controlled  the 
whole,  should  have  any  difficulties  to  contend  with  in 
us  or  in  our  history  or  nature,  that  we  should  require 
patience,  or  he  show  mercy.  But  this,  I  remind  you, 
is  the  insoluble  question,  which  our  faculties  are  too 
limited  to  answer.  It  is  enough  that  difficulties  do 
exist ;  that  we  are  within,  and  without  imperilled,  be 
set,  in  need  of  help,  mercy,  consideration.  And  I  re 
peat,  that  God  gives  us  that  help,  mercy,  and  consid 
eration  ;  and  that  all  we  know  of  God  directly — God 
in  his  relations  to  us  as  imperfect,  erring,  and  suffering 
creatures — is  what  is  worthy  of  an  infinitely  good  Being  : 
a  Father  and  helper,  a  merciful,  considerate,  and  ever- 
patient  and  forgiving  God. 

The  great  argument  of  God  in  his  Gospel,  as  I  be 
gan  with  saying,  is  that  which  forms  the  words  of  our 
text :  "  I  beseech  you  by  the  meekness  and  gentleness  of 
Christ."  God's  love  to  man,  despite  his  erring  and  imper 
fect  nature,  despite  his  gross  and  numerous  sins,  is  the 
source  and  the  import  of  all  religion.  Whatever  there  is 
hard  or  sorrowful,  dark  or  desperate  in  ourselves,  or  our 
circumstances,  or  our  lot,  comes  not  from  any  thing  in 
God's  disposition  towards  us.  There  is  hardship,  there 
is  difficulty,  there  is  seeming  injustice — nay,  there  are 
terrible  and  awful  issues  hanging  over  us.  They  come 
from  a  mysterious  source  ;  a  fatal  necessity  ;  they  grow 
out  of  what  we  do  not  and  cannot  understand.  Call  it 


RELIGION    A    REFUGE    FROM    EVIL.  173 

fate,  call  it  mystery,  call  it  Satan  ;  but  do  not  call  it 
God.  At  any  rate,  call  it  not  God's  character,  if  you 
ascribe  it  to  God's  nature.  God's  nature  may  involve 
tremendous  necessities — may  be  grounded  in  inflexible 
justice — may  require  a  hard,  retributive  code — may 
have  something,  or  much,  or  all,  of  the  pitiless  mechan 
ism  of  nature,  sounding  on  its  solemn  and  fearful  way 
through  the  moral  universe,  without  respect  of  per 
sons.  But  we  know  little  or  nothing,  and  can  un 
derstand  little  or  nothing,  of  this.  God's  character 
we  do  know  and  can  understand.  And  that  character 
has  nothing  of  the  harshness,  or  cold  severity,  or  inflex 
ible  justice  which  may  be  ascribed  to  God's  nature. 
It  is  all  motherly,  tender,  striving  to  help,  ready  to 
bind  up  our  wounds,  and  breaking  out  only  in  efforts 
and  promises  of  love  and  mercy.  The  two  great  reve 
lations  may  be  said  to  have  grown  out  of  God's  longing 
to  be  understood  and  loved,  and  to  be  distinguished,  in 
his  personal  character,  from  the  source  of  human  woes 
and  sinfulness.  He  presents  himself  in  his  voluntary 
and  personal  character,  as  the  friend  of  man  in  his  strug 
gle  with  himself  and  the  world  ;  as  his  merciful  and 
gracious  helper  and  consoler.  Will  you  still  insist  that 
he  made  the  very  nature,  and  the  very  world,  that  so 
much  needs  his  help  and  consolation  ?  Will  you  say, 
that  what  is  sad,  and  threatening,  and  evil  in  nature, 
and  the  soul,  and  man's  history,  tell  against  the  tender 
ness  of  God,  as  much  as  his  Word  and  his  revelations 
of  himself  tell  in  its  favor  ?  that  to  be  placed  in  a  con 
dition  to  need  this  mercy  is  as  cruel,  as  to  have  it  ex 
tended,  is  kind  ?  I  acknowledge  the  logical  form  and 
force  of  the  argument.  But  I  remind  you,  that  in 


174  THE    RE- ADJUSTMENT    OF    FAITH. 

judging  God's  nature,  you  judge  what  it  is  manifestly 
beyond  the  reach  of  your  faculties  to  judge  decisively  ; 
but  that  in  judging  the  positive  declarations  of  himself 
in  his  Word,  in  estimating  his  character  as  it  appears  in 
his  direct  dealings  with  us  by  his  prophets  and  his  Son, 
you  have  a  subject  within  the  range  of  your  powers, 
and  on  the  plane  of  your  present  experience. 

I  press  this  point,  because  I  wish  to  present  religion 
to  you  as  the  unmixed  benefaction  of  Heaven  ;  I  wish 
you  to  think  of  it  solely  as  the  gentle  and  helpful  friend 
of  your  souls.  Too  often  and  too  long  have  we  dwelt 
upon  it,  as  if  it  were  answerable  for  all  the  dark  prob 
lems  in  our  lot  ;  as  if  every  question  the  metaphysician 
and  philosopher  could  ask,  religion  must  either  answer, 
or  hold  itself  responsible  for  not  answering.  I  tell  you 
that  religion  has  nothing  to  do  with  the  evil  in  the 
world,  or  the  evil  in  your  nature,  or  the  evil  over  your 
destiny,  except  to  save  you  from  them  and  avert  them. 
It  finds  you  blind,  sick,  sad,  forlorn,  and  wishes  only  to 
give  you  light,  health,  cheerfulness,  and  gracious  com 
munion.  Admitting  all  of  human  error,  weakness  and 
misfortune,  all  that  is  alarming  and  trying  in  our 
moral  state,  it  sets  to  work,  like  the  good  Samaritan, 
to  heal  the  wounded  man  it  finds  by  the  wayside.  It 
does  not  say,  "  How  came  you  here  thus  buffeted  and 
bruised,  and  what  business  had  you  in  this  dangerous 
road — or  what  use  will  you  make  of  the  healing  I  offer 
you,  supposing  I  administer  it  !  "  It  does  not  stop  to 
give  an  account  of  the  reasons  why  the  sufferer  has 
been  permitted  to  fall  among  thieves,  and  be  robbed 
and  beaten.  Nothing  of  this.  But  it  goes  straight  to 
work  pouring  oil  and  wine  into  the  wounds,  and  bind- 


KELIGION   A    REFUGE   FEOM    EVIL.  175 

ing  up  the  broken  limbs,  and  bearing  the  unfortunate 
to  shelter  and  tender  care. 

Alas,  my  brethren,  how  many  are  there  declining 
God's  blessed  consolation,  guidance  and  help,  until  they 
can  settle  a  hundred  metaphysical  questions  about  their 
origin  and  destiny  !  They  must  have  a  rational  and 
exhaustive  system  of  religious  philosophy,  before  they 
will  lean  on  the  -arm  that  is  offered  them,  or  accept  the 
deliverance  which  is  extended.  They  must  know  how 
they  got  into  this  dilemma,  before  they  will  allow 
themselves  to  be  got  out  of  it.  They  must  first  dis 
cover  what  made  them  sick,  before  they  will  permit 
the  good  physician  to  heal  them  !  as  if  these  were  not 
secondary  questions,  which,  if  never  settled  at  all,  do 
not  affect  the  primary  one.  Man's  weakness,  sorrow, 
sinfulness,  are  facts,  dreadful  facts,  of  immediate  and 
pressing  urgency.  You  may  not  think  it  fair  that  an 
Infinite  Being  should  have  given  you  a  precarious  and 
exposed  existence.  But  the  fact  remains  ;  you  have  a 
precarious  and  exposed  existence.  You  may  not  under 
stand  the  justice  of  hereditary  weakness  and  constitu 
tional  tendencies  to  moral  obliquity,  but  it  does  not 
change  the  fact.  You  may  not  see  how  a  perfect  God 
could  have  made  an  imperfect  world.  But  it  is  an  im 
perfect  world,  and  you  have  an  imperfect  nature.  And 
your  metaphysical  or  moral  difficulty  will  never  alter 
that  fact  a  hair.  Moreover,  does  it  give  you  the  least 
comfort  to  think  God  imperfect ;  or  will  it  help  your 
philosophy  at  all  to  imagine  him,  or  even  to  prove  him, 
imperfect  ?  What  then  can  be  greater  folly  than  to 
postpone  the  use  and  enjoyment  of  what  is  so  real  as 
religion — which  is  a  beautiful  ministry  to  our  weakness 


176  THE    RE-ADJUSTMENT    OF    FAITH. 

and  sorrow  and  doubt — until  we  have  obtained,  what 
never  yet  was  found,  an  harmonious,  perfectly  coherent 
and  logical  system  of  the  universe,  with  the  problem 
of  evil  fairly  solved  ! 

Do  not  think  that  I  am  arguing  with  an  imaginary 
class  of  objectors.  Society  is  full  of  intelligent  minds, 
that  are  keenly  alive  to  the  knotty  difficulties  involved 
in  the  science  of  human  origin  and  destiny,  and  who 
imagine  that  practical  religion,  religion  as  a  faith,  a 
consolation,  a  life,  is  involved  in  the  obscurity,  or  waits 
the  answer,  of  their  metaphysical  problems.  Some  of 
the  most  powerful  and  generous  minds  and  hearts  are 
in  this  suspense,  thinking  it  quite  inconsistent  and 
illogical,  quite  weak  and  unmanly,  to  profess  piety,  or 
adopt  Christianity,  or  bow  before  God,  while  these  dif 
ficulties  remain  unsettled.  And  so  their  logic  and 
their  good  sense  seem  to  bar  them  out  of  God's  king 
dom.  I  tell  such  men  fairly,  that  they  are  quarrelling 
with  a  mystery  which  is  mightier  than  the  mightiest — 
waiting  for  a  light  that  never  yet  has  blest  the  eye  of 
sage  or  philosopher.  It  is  not  by  that  door  of  a  satis 
fied  intellect  that  any  man  enters  the  kingdom  of  God. 
A  child  can  ask  questions  which  an  apostle  cannot 
answer,  and  the  feeblest  intellect  feel  and  propose  dif 
ficulties  which  the  strongest  cannot  remove.  It  is  pre 
cisely  because  sight  fails  us  that  we  need  faith.  It  is 
just  because  we  are  so  baffled  as  thinkers,  that  we  are 
driven  to  living  rightly  in  place  of  thinking  satisfac 
torily,  driven  to  worship  instead  of  to  philosophy.  The 
Church  has  called  religion  a  mystery.  Never  was  a 
more,  ill-deserved  name  attached  to  it.  It  is  life  which 
is  the  mystery — man,  the  soul,  human  circumstances 


RELIGION    A    REFUGE    FROM   EVIL.  177 

and  prospects.  Keligion,  on  the  contrary,  is  the  light 
which  Heaven  throws  across  this  mystery ;  the  door  it 
opens  out  of  this  darkness.  Surely  it  is  not  mysterious 
that  God  offers  us  help,  consolation,  pity,  and  promises 
us  strength  in  our  efforts  at  goodness,  and  acceptance 
in  our  penitence.  The  mystery  is  that  we  should  re 
quire  this  help  and  pity,  not  that  it  should  come  to  us. 
Keligion  is  the  very  opposite  of  mystery,  of  which  na 
ture  and  man  and  life  are  full. 

I  wish,  my  brethren,  without  the  use  of  paradoxical 
language,  I  could  show  you  how  ill-fitted  to  guide  us 
through  life,  or  to  help  us  out  of  our  real  moral  diffi 
culties  and  darkness,  this  boasted  understanding  is,  on 
which  we  rely  so  exclusively.  I  suppose  there  is  no 
part  of  our  immortal  nature — fearfully  and  wonderfully 
made  as  it  is — full  of  grandeur  and  awe,  but  undevel 
oped  and  unarranged  as  yet — I  suppose  there  is  no  part 
of  that  nature  so  little  competent  to  deal  with  unseen 
things,  as  our  reasoning  powers  so  called.  We  touch 
God  with  any  of  our  other  faculties,  and  compass  him 
with  any  of  our  other  powers,  more  readily  and  ade 
quately  than  with  our  understanding.  Our  hearts,  our 
consciences,  our  imaginations,  our  instincts,  are  far 
more  fully  developed,  far  nearer  on  a  level  with  God, 
than  our  logical  faculty.  It  is  precisely  between  God 
and  us  as  between  other  superiors  and  inferiors,  the 
educated  and  the  ignorant,  or  the  adult  and  the  child. 
In  all  these  cases,  the  affections,  the  imagination,  the 
instincts,  establish  ready  and  even  equal  relations,  but 
the  intellect  is  only  a  barrier  and  division  wall.  The 
moment  I  begin  to  reason  with  my  child,  or  with 
my  servant,  I  feel  the  distance  we  are  apart.  But 


178  THE    RE-ADJUSTMENT    OF   FAITH. 

when  we  are  only  exchanging  affections,  or  relying  on 
the  instincts  of  our  common  nature,  we  are  mutually 
near,  and  perfectly  intelligible.  My  child  understands 
me  fully  with  his  heart,  let  my  government,  let  my  oc 
cupations  and  ways,  be  ever  so  obscure  and  mysterious 
to  him.  And  he  is  perfectly  justified  in  trusting  his 
heart  and  leaning  wholly  and  unreservedly  upon  my 
protection.  Lord  Bacon  has  said  that  man  is  the  God 
of  the  dog,1  who  worships  and  obeys  him,  and  feels  the 
dignity  and  happiness  of  being  his  servant ;  and  in  the 
total  lack  of  reason,  how  touching  and  instructive  is 
the  affectionate  brute's  communion  with  and  devotion 
to  his  master  !  Can  we  not,  without  irreverence,  say 
that  we  know  less  of  God  intellectually,  than  the  dog 
knows  of  his  master's  mind,  and  are  less  competent  to 
fathom  him  ?  but  if  we  can  know  God  as  the  dog 
knows  his  master — know  him  to  love  him  and  to  glory 
in  his  protection,  and  to  develop  beautiful  qualities 
and  enjoy  a  heightened  existence  in  his  service,  do  we 
not  know  him  to  a  glorious  and  satisfactory  purpose — 
know  him  really,  and  by  moral  instincts  and  affections, 

1  Lord  Bacon's  precise  words  are :  "  They  that  deny  a  God  destroy 
man's  nobility ;  for  certainly  man  is  of  kin  to  the  beasts  by  his  body,  and 
if  he  be  not  of  kin  to  God  by  his  spirit,  he  is  a  base  and  ignoble  creature. 
It  destroys,  likewise,  magnanimity,  and  the  raising  of  human  nature  : 
for  tako  an  example  of  a  dog,  and  mark  what  a  generosity  and  courage 
he  will  put  on,  when  he  finds  himself  maintained  by  a  man  who,  to 
him,  is  in  place  of  a  God,  or  melior  natura ;  which  courage  is  manifestly 
such  as  that  creature,  without  confidence  of  a  better  nature  than  his  own, 
could  never  attain.  So  man,  when  he  resteth  and  assxireth  himself  upon 
divine  protection  and  favor,  gathereth  a  force  and  faith  which  human  na 
ture  in  itself  could  not  obtain  :  therefore,  as  atheism  in  in  all  respects  hate 
ful,  so  in  this,  that  it  dt-priveth  human  nature  of  the  means  to  exalt  itself 
above  human  frailty." — Bacons  Essays,  vol.  i.  p.  274-. 


RELIGION    A    REFUFE    FROM   EVIL.  179 

which  are  the  beauty,  aye,  and  the  strength  of  our  na 
ture  ?  The  greatest  intellects,  my  brethren,  have 
been  those  which  have  felt  most  humbly  their  own 
utter  inconipetency  to  wrestle  with  the  mystery  of  the 
universe,  and  have,  with  the  readiest  homage,  bowed 
themselves  in  worship  and  faith,  where  sight  failed 
them.  Do  you  think  it  a  triumph  of  consistency,  a 
proof  of  intellectual  power,  to  stand  up  unawed,  and, 
with  a  bold  stare  and  curious  questioning,  before  re 
ligion,  determined  not  to  wink  before  its  glory,  or  to 
bow  one  inch  in  the  presence  of  its  beauty,  until  it 
justifies  itself  exactly  to  your  reason  ?  Ah  !  my  vain 
fellow-creature  ;  it  is  not  that  your  reason  is  too  great, 
or  too  searching,  or  too  sharp,  that  religion  cannot 
satisfy  you  ;  but  too  small,  and  too  inapt,  and  too  dull. 
Eeflect  that  you  are  not  asked  to  do  God  any  service, 
but  that  he  is  waiting  to  do  you  one  ;  that  religion 
does  not  want  you,  but  that  you  want  religion.  Sup 
pose  you  are  not  satisfied  with  the  government  of  the 
universe,  or  with  your  nature,  or  God's  providence  ; 
will  that  hurt  anybody  but  yourself?  You  are  the 
only  one  to  be  hurt,  or  helped.  You  are  not  a  strong 
man,  whose  enlistment  in  the  ranks  of  religion  is  anx 
iously  solicited  for  the  service  you  may  supply  ;  but  a 
-sick  man,  whose  acceptance  of  religious  care  and  cure 
is  affectionately  asked  for  your  own  sake.  By  the 
meekness  and  gentleness  of  Christ,  I  beseech  you  to 
accept  the  offer  of  guidance  and  consolation  which  it 
tenders  to  your  heart. 

Come,  then,  in  the  spirit  of  needy  and  erring  men, 
who  feel  your  blindness  and  your  wants,  who  know 
your  sins  and  follies — your  openness  to  temptation, 


180  THE    RE-ADJUSTMENT    OF    FAITH. 

your  urgent  want  of  aim  and  object,  of  inspiration  and 
divine  communion  ;  come  to  the  altar  of  God,  to  the 
Church  of  Christ,  and  render  up  your  hearts  to  your 
Father  and  your  Saviour  !  Do  you  not  long  to  bow 
down  before  your  Maker — to  rest  those  strained  and 
weary  muscles  that  have  held  out  so  long  against  the 
impulse  that  would  throw  you  prostrate  at  his  feet  ? 
Do  you  not  desire  to  flood  those  eyes,  that  ache  with 
their  dry,  fixed  lids  of  proud  intelligence,  with  the 
gracious  tears  of  penitence  and  trust  ?  Is  there  not  a 
hidden,  long-repressed  yearning  in  your  souls,  to  give 
up  to  God  and  to  Christ  the  care  and  charge  of  your 
troublous  being,  and  to  find  in  trust  and  in  worship  the 
rest  and  the  peace  nothing  else  is  able  to  give  ?  I  be 
seech  you,  by  the  meekness  and  gentleness  of  Christ, 
do  not  resist  these  holy  impulses.  They  come  from 
heaven.  Obeyed,  they  will  give  you  the  meekness  and 
gentleness  of  the  Master  !  And  when  you  have  re 
ceived  any  considerable  measure  of  that,  you  will  no 
longer  question  the  sacredness  and  blessedness  of  the 
fountain  whence  such  refreshment  has  come.  A  char- 
acter,  a  Christian  character,  is  the  immense  benefac 
tion  of  the  Gospel  !  To  be  like  Christ  !  if  any  thing 
can  give  you  that,  will  you  not  bless  it,  and  honor  it, 
and  trust  it  ?  Is  that  not  what  you  would  give  all 
else  in  the  world  for  ?  Yes  ;  and  that  will  descend 
upon  you,  steal  in  upon  your  affections,  take  possession 
of  your  conscience,  fix  and  empower  your  will,  renew 
and  transform  you,  beginning  its  work  from  the  mo 
ment  you  heartily  close  with  the  Gospel  of  Christ — 
adopt  and  take  home  as  a  bride,  for  better  and  for 
worse,  through  good  report  and  through  evil  report,  in 


RELIGION    A    REFUGE    FROM    EVIL.  181 


sickness  and  in  health,  the  religion  of  the  holy  Son  of 
God.  I  beseech  you,  by  the  meekness  and  gentleness 
of  Christ,  and  by  the  mercies  and  goodness  of  God,  to 
take  up  with  this  offer  !  Commit  yourselves,  by  the 
bravest  and  most  open  confession,  to  the  service  of 
God.  If  it  be  unpopular  to  avow  a  religious  faith,  let 
that  be  a  fresh  appeal  to  your  moral  courage  to  do  it. 
If  it  cost  an  effort  to  encounter  the  surmises  and  glances 
of  the  world  in  a  religious  profession,  thank  God  there 
is  some  stigma  still  left  by  which  to  honor  him  who 
was  buffeted  for  our  sins.  If  consistency  and  ration 
ality  hinder  you,  cast  them  behind  you  as  the  tempta 
tions  of  Satan.  If  the  Gospel  of  Christ  be  not  what  it 
seems  ;  if  the  communion  of  Christ's  suffering  be  not 
a  holy  and  beautiful  memorial  of  divine  excellences  ;  if 
the  religion  which  has  clothed  the  noblest  humanity  of 
nineteen  centuries  with  graces  and  charities,  be  a  delu 
sion  ;  if  the  sweetness  of  a  trust  in  God,  the  comfort  of 
prayer,  the  sanctities  of  an  obedient  spirit,  tho  hopes 
and  confidences  of  a  religious  heart ;  if  the  Church  of 
the  Lamb,  and  the  worship  of  the  Father,  and  the 
communion  of  saints,  and  the  fellowship  of  the  Holy 
Spirit — if,  my  brethren,  these  be  all  dreams,  supersti 
tions,  delusions,  they  are  blessed  dreams.  Oh  !  may  I 
never  wake  from  them.  I  do  not  wish  to  live,  if  I  can 
not  live  in  their  light,  and  upon  their  comfort.  I  care 
not  what  death  is,  nor  when  it  comes,  nor  where  it 
carries  me,  if  the  religion  of  Jesus  Christ  be  not  true. 
I  take  it  as  it  is,  and  on  it  I  cast  my  all.  I  will  live 
and  die  in  it.  All  scruples,  doubts,  misgivings,  I  fling 
to  the  winds.  "  For  I  am  persuaded  that  neither 
death,  nor  life,  nor  angels,  nor  principalities,  nor 


182  THE    RE-ADJUSTMENT    OF    FAITH. 

powers,  nor  things  present,  nor  things  to  come,  nor 
height,  nor  depth,  nor  any  other  creature,  shall  he  ahle 
to  separate  us  from  the  love  of  God,  which  is  in  Christ 
Jesus  our  Lord/' ' 

NOVEMBER  4,  1855. 

1  Rom.  viii.  39. 


SERMON  XII. 

GENERAL  LAWS  AND  A  SPECIAL  PROVIDENCE  RECONCILEp. 

OCCASIONED    BY   THE   BURNING   OF   THE    "AUSTRIA"   AT  SEA. 

"  Master,  carest  thou  not  that  we  perish?  " — MARK  iv.  38. 

IT  was  in  the  midst  of  a  sudden  storm  on  the  little 
sea  of  Galilee,  that  the  disciples  in  charge  of  the  vessel, 
waking  Jesus  from  his  trustful  repose  in  the  hinder 
part  of  the  boat,  addressed  this  natural  appeal  to  his 
protection.  Suppose  he  had  confessed  his  inability  to 
calm  the  sea,  and  as  the  danger  grew  more  and  more 
imminent,  had  only  given  himself  up  to  a  deeper  sleep, 
until  the  vessel,  with  its  living  freight,  sunk  into  the 
waves  !  What  would  have  been  the  confidence  of  the 
few  possible  survivors  of  the  wreck,  in  his  power  or 
goodness  ?  what  that  of  the  friends  of  the  perished 
crew  ?  No  such  occasion  was  given.  "  Jesus  arose 
and  rebuked  the  wind,  and  said  unto  the  sea,  Peace,  be 
still ;  and  the  wind  ceased,  and  there  was  a  great 
calm."  That  calm  was  a  miracle  ;  that  rescue,  a  spe 
cial  interposition.  Jesus  represented  in  that  vessel,  as 
he  did  on  the  earth,  the  immediate  presence  of  God. 
It  was  fit  that  his  authority  should  be  asserted,  his 


184  THE    RE-ADJUSTMENT    OF    FAITH. 

office  proclaimed  and  illustrated  by  marvels  ;  that  his 
spiritual  work,  a  Gospel  for  all  time,  should  be  attested 
by  miracles — i.  e.,  special  departures  from  the  ordinary 
course  of  God's  providence.  And,  therefore,  on  all 
proper  occasions,  Jesus  worked  miracles  :  feeding  crowds 
with  bread,  that  at  his  command  grew  beneath  the 
hands  of  them  that  broke  the  seven  loaves,  into  food 
for  thousands  ;  healing  the  sick  with  a  touch,  calming 
the  winds  and  the  sea,  making  the  water  solid  beneath 
tlje  sinking  Peter,  the  air  firm  as  the  ground  under  his 
own  weight,  when  they  led  him  to  the  brow  of  the  hill 
whereon  Nazareth  was  built,  that  they  might  cast  him 
down  headlong  ;  stone  walls  and  wooden  doors. yielding 
as  the  atmosphere,  when  he  chose  to  pass  through  them. 
By  miracles  he  averted  danger  from  his  friends,  raised 
their  dead,  and  secured  the  confidence  of  his  timid  dis 
ciples  and  the*  foundation  of  his  religion  in  the  world. 
But  now,  mark  the  contrast  • 

When  lately,  in  much  more  urgent  and  distressing 
circumstances,  another  imperilled  crew — not  in  a  little 
lake,  in  sight  of  land,  but  on  the  vast,  unbounded  ocean 
— not  a  handful  of  fishermen,  used  to  the  water,  but 
six  hundred  souls,  collected  from  all  quarters,  and  all 
pursuits — husbands  and  wives,  parents  and  children — 
men  of  all  professions  and  callings,  merchants,  mission 
aries,  mechanics,  artists,  rich  and  poor — prosperous  vis 
itors  to  their  old  home  returning  to  their  new  and 
adopted  country,  bringing  their  wives  and  children  to 
taste  their  own  dear-bought  success — emigrants,  after 
great  struggles  to  achieve  the  opportunity,  seeking  with 
hope  a  better  career  in  an  uncrowded  continent — repre 
sentatives  of  all  nationalities,  as  of  all  grades  and  call- 


GENERAL    LAWS   AND    A    SPECIAL    PROVIDENCE.      185 

ings — when  this  other  crew,  the  population  of  a  town, 
as  it  were,  compressed  within  one  ship,  beset,  not  by  a 
single  element,  usually  regarded  as  the  most  pitiless, 
but  now  found  kinder  than  another  ;  whom  fire  and  wa 
ter  together  vie  with  their  opposite  terrors  to  destroy — 
when,  I  say,  such  a  wretched  crew,  on  the  13th  of  Sep 
tember,  cried,  with  shrieks  and  prayers,  that  must  ring 
for  ever  in  the  ears  of  the  saved,  "  Lord  Jesus,  help  ! 
Dost  thou  not  care  that  we  perish  !  God  have  mercy  ! 
Spare  us,  our  wives,  our  little  ones  !  "  No  benignant 
Saviour  then  descended  to  rescue  this  most  helpless,  in 
part  most  innocent,  this  wholly  surprised  and  fright 
fully  beleaguered  freight  of  precious  souls  !  The  panic- 
stricken,  dastardly  officers,  seem  not  more  careless  of 
the  fate  of  six  hundred  lives  than  Divine  Providence 
itself !  Had  the  Almighty  been  asleep,  and  slept 
through  those  awful  groans  and  shrieks  demanding  his 
pity  and  protection,  fire  and  water  could  not  have  had 
a  more  unimpeded  way,  a  more  merciless  and  cruel  vic 
tory.  Where  was  Jesus,  that  he  who  said  "  peace  "  to 
that  ancient  gea,  did  not  calm  this  modern  ocean,  and 
that  more  terrible  sea  of  fire  ?  Where  was  God,  that 
his  impartial  and  paternal  heart  did  not  hasten  to  allay 
those  flames,  to  save  those  innocent  children,  to  bless 
those  tender  pairs  whose  love  burned  brighter  than  the 
fires  that  drove  them,  locked  in  each  other's  arms,  into 
the  sea  ?  How  could  heavenly  mercy  see  that  noble 
Hungarian  father  fling  his  children,  one  by  one,  after 
their  mother,  into  the  gulf  of  death,  and  then,  with  his 
baby  on  his  breast,  himself  the  greatest  sufferer  of  all, 
leap  after  them  into  the  watery  grave  I  Can  we  spare 
such  brave,  heroic  souls  ?  Can  God  allow  the  mean 


186  THE     RE-ADJUSTMENT    OF    FAITH. 

and  cowardly  officers  of  such  a  ship  to  carry  off  their 
branded  and  worthless  lives,  and  those  precious,  tender, 
manly  hearts — those  lovely  women,  those  loving  men, 
those  innocent  children — to  perish  ? 

These,  my  brethren,  are  natural,  if  awful,  questions. 
In  forms  more  or  less  distinct,  in  ways  more  or  less  di 
rect,  they  do,  they  must  come,  when  calamities  like 
this  occur,  into  all  minds  that  dare  to  think.  Is  it  not 
well  to  meet  them  fairly,  honestly,  and  in  the  courage- 
.  ous  spirit  in  which  some  of  the  victims  of  the  Austrian 
wreck  met  their  appalling  fate  ?  Convinced  as  I  am, 
fiom  the  very  depths  of  my  soul,  that  God  was  present 
in  his  most  paternal  character  in  that  very  disaster,  as 
he  is  on  all  battle-fields,  in  pestilences,  murders,  calami 
ties,  no  matter  how  promiscuous,  or  terrible  their  cir 
cumstances  ;  that  each  and  every  prayer,  groan,  tear, 
pang  of  quivering  flesh,  and  gasp  of  choking  lungs,  was 
then  and  is  always  noted  and  pitied  in  heaven,  even 
when  unrelieved — that  Jesus  is  as  really  present,  and 
as  really  saving  to  his  disciples,  though  they  are  left  to 
perish  in  the  storm,  as  though  they  were  plucked  from 
its  fury — I  cannot  fail  to  desire  to  communicate  this 
faith  to  you,  and  to  lead  you  to  perfect  repose  and  con 
fidence,  in  view  of  so  overwhelming  a  public  calamity 
as  that  which  lately  arrested  and  tortured  public  atten 
tion. 

I  begin  with  calling  your  attention  to  an  important 
preliminary  consideration  : 

The  circumstances  that  try  our  Christian  faith  and 
introduce  distressing  doubts  of  God's  special  provi 
dence,  as  of  his  justice  and  kindness,  in  all  events  like 
this,  are  not  essentially  different  from  those  which  task 


GENEKAL    LAWS   AND    A    SPECIAL    PKOVIDENCE.      187 

our  intelligence  and  try  our  hearts  in  the  ordinary  course 
of  human  affairs.  To  see  the  good  and  'the  had,  the 
important  and  the  insignificant,  the  faithful  and  the 
unbelieving,  whelmed  in  a  common  fate — the  victims  of 
a  sudden  stroke  of  misfortune,  a  petty  accident,  itself 
without  necessity  or  excuse,  and  yet  so  mighty  and  aw 
ful  in  its  instant  consequences — douhtless  tends  to  sug 
gest  a  sense  of  the  reign  of  chance, — the  dominion  of 
pitiless,  indiscriminate  law  or  "blind  force — terribly  shock 
ing  to  filial  confidence,  to  belief  in  a  personal  superin 
tendent  and  direct  and  punctilious  Governor  of  the  uni 
verse.  This  event,  however,  I  repeat,  differs  from  a 
thousand  others,  nay;  from  the  general  character  of 
human  experience,  not  in  principle,  but  only  in  being 
more  bold  and  arresting  in  its  features.  What  hap 
pened  here,  in  a  way  to  shock,  as  it  must,  the  awe- 
stricken  sensibility  of  the  civilized  world,  is  happening, 
so  far  as  the  principles  mooted  in  it  are  concerned,  every 
day,  and  is  the  rule,  indeed,  of  all  human  experience. 
The  good  and  bad,  the  young  and  the  old,  irrespective  of 
merit,  are  constantly  made  forcible  and  equal  partners 
both  in  prosperity  and  in  adversity.  As  a  general  rule, 
not  in  evil  alone,  you  notice,  but  also  in  good,  we  share 
the  blessings  and  misfortunes  of  those  contiguous  to  us, 
and,  outwardly  viewed,  are  not  permitted,  except  to  a 
very  limited  degree,  to  separate  ourselves  from  a  certain 
promiscuous  experience,  whether  of  good  or  of  evil. 
Thus  no  man,  good  or  bad,  escapes  the  tendencies  of  his 
age,  the  spirit  of  his  neighborhood,  the  fortunes  of  his 
nation,  the  experiences  of  his  community,  the  influence 
of  his  family.  General  calamities,  like  general  bless 
ings,  fall  on  whole  eras,  whole  cities,  whole  races,  whole 


188  THE    RE-ADJUSTMENT    OF    FAITH. 

neighborhoods,  whole  families.  War,  peace,  famine, 
plenty,  pestilence,  health,  make  no  distinction  in  favor 
of  individuals,  when  they  come  to  wither,  or  come  to 
bless,  the  seasons  and  the  nations.  If  you  undertake 
to  run  any  guage  of  merit,  or  even  fitness,  through  the 
dealings  of  death,  or  pestilence,  or  war,  you  must  know 
that  you  will  find  no  satisfaction  in  your  inquiry.  It  is 
not  the  bad  who  die  early,  nor  is  it  the  good  !  It  is  not 
the  worthless,  nor  is  it  the  exalted  whom  pestilence 
smites.  They  seem  impartial  and  indiscriminate. 
Whoever  is  found  on  their  ground,  no  matter  what  his 
character  or  claims  may  be,  how  insignificant  or  how 
important,  falls  before  them.  There  seems  to  be 
neither  an  eye  to  merit,  nor  to  what  we  think  impor 
tance,  in  the  allotments  of  external  misfortunes.  Light 
ning,  just  as  naturally  and  pitilessly,  strikes  down  a 
king  as  his  meanest  subject  ;  shipwreck  visits  a  vessel 
freighted  with  a  thousand  souls  with  as  little  compunc 
tion  as  a  pilot-boat.  Death  destroys  more  infants  than 
old  men  ;  nor  is  there  the  least  apparent  discrimination  or 
tenderness  shown  to  human  worth.  The  good  mother 
is  taken  from  her  orphans  ;  the  only  child  from  his  vir 
tuous  parents.  The  bad  often  live  on  to  torment  their 
protectors  and  supporters.  The  drunkard  survives  the 
faithful  wife  he  has  beaten  into  her  grave,  after  having 
broken  her  heart.  Yet  there  is  no  rule  even  for  this. 
The  good,  the  deserving,  the  excellent,  are  often  visited 
with  long  life,  experience  great  outward  prosperity,  are 
unexpectedly  spared  in  danger.  The  only  thing  that 
the  Providence  of  Grod  would  seem  determined  to  im 
press  upon  us,  is  the  utter  folly  of  attempting  to  read 
its  counsels,  or  of  taking  any  methodical  account  of  its 


GENERAL   LAWS   AND    A    SPECIAL   PROVIDENCE.      189 

dealings  in  individual  instances.  It  baffles  all  our  pene 
tration,  upsets  all  our  calculations,  and  denies  us  the 
possession  of  any  means  of  anticipating  or  of  account 
ing  for  its  modes  of  action  in  particular  cases. 

I  suppose,  however,  that  the  benignity,  wisdom  and 
power  of  God  are  confessed  and  obvious,  spite  of  excep 
tional  cases,  in  the  general  government  of  the  world  ; 
and  that  as  we  acknowledge  the  kindness  of  Nature,  in 
full  view  of  her  volcanoes,  storms  and  poisons,  so  we 
are  ready,  in  our  philosophic  and  comprehensive  moods, 
and  when  not  pressed  by  special  experiences  of  misfor 
tune,  to  own  the  goodness  of  God  in  the  general  order 
ing  of  his  Providence  towards  men.  In  short,  we  ac 
knowledge  the  wisdom  and  benevolence  of  general  laws 
— in  a  general  way. 

It  is  evident  that  the  real  difficulty  presented  by 
every  case  like  the  present  is  this  :  how  to  reconcile  the 
action  of  general  laws  and  secondary  causes,  admitted 
to  be  good  and  necessary  in  their  ordinary  tendencies, 
with  what  the  heart  so  much  craves  for  its  support  under 
distress  and  sorrow — the  idea  of  a  present,  an  interested, 
and  a  particular  Providence.  All  considerate  observers 
of  the  workings  of  the  general  plan,  confess  that  its  rules 
are  plainly  good  rules,  that  it  proceeds  upon  wise,  kind, 
and  even  necessary  principles,  if  the  divine  government 
must  be  carried  on  thus  generally  ;  but  what  tries  their 
faith,  is  that  an  omnipotent  Being,  by  theory  everywhere 
present,  should  be  shut  up  to  general  laws,  should  not 
desire  to  interpose,  should  not  actually  interpose  in  any 
case  of  special  hardship  and  injustice,  to  correct  the  cruel 
operation  of  pitiless  rules.  How  can  a  living,  personal, 
omnipresent  God  and  Father  submit  to  have  his  own 


190  THE    RE- ADJUSTMENT    OF    FAITH. 

heart,  his  own  love  and  mercy,  hampered  and  hindered 
by  such  rigid  and  indiscriminate  regulations  ? 

Now,  in  order  to  understand  how  such  a  rigid  and 
often  terrible  state  of  things  consists  with  the  theory  of 
a  moral  Governor  of  the  universe,  and  a  paternal,  per 
sonal  Deity,  directing  all  affairs,  I  beg  your  attention 
to  one  leading  thought.  It  respects  the  method  of  the 
divine  activity.  God's  natural  mode  of  action  would 
be  by  miracle,  by  constant  interposition,  or  rather  by  a 
perpetual  and  direct  exercise  of  his  will,  applied  to 
every  specific  occasion.  A  Being  everywhere  present, 
all-wise,  omnipotent,  can  find  no  difficulty  in  such  uni 
versal  directness  and  immediacy  of  action  !  Why,  then, 
is  the  world  in  which  we  live  and  the  universe  we  are 
acquainted  with,  so  undeniably  not  governed  by  miracle, 
so  obviously  not  governed  by  interpositions,  and  special 
appliances,  and  accommodations  on  the  part  of  the 
Deity  ?  Not,  I  ask  you  to  notice,  not  for  God's  conve 
nience,  not  to  save  him  trouble  and  time,  and  to  econo 
mize  his  government  and  facilitate  his  affairs — not  to 
permit  him  to  absent  himself  while  his  agents  do  his 
work — but  plainly,  for  our  sake,  to  allow  us  to  get  away 
from  the  feeling  of  his  immediate  control,  away  from 
the  direct  beams  of  his  burning  and  overwhelming 
presence,  that  we  may  have  some  little  chance  to  find 
ourselves,  to  establish  our  free  will,  to  act  an  independ 
ent  part,  and  thus  achieve  a  moral  existence  !  God 
benevolently  puts  the  seeming  restraint  of  what  we  call 
law,  that  is,  a  regular  method  of  acting,  upon  himself — 
for  our  sakes — to  create  a  domain  of  liberty  for  us  to 
move  in — certain  opportunities  of  foresight,  calculation, 
reliance,  on  which  we  can  depend,  and  which  form  the 


GENERAL    LAWS    AND    A    SPECIAL   PROVIDENCE.      191 

only  possible  basis  of  a  human,  rational  and  moral  ex 
istence.  All  the  so-called  laws  of  Nature  are  of  this 
character — though  in  appearance  only — self-acting, 
rigid,  uncompromising,  and  maintained  in  their  gen 
eral,  impartial,  and  therefore  often  promiscuous  and 
sweeping,  operation — for  the  sake  of  man's  education, 
which  is  found  in  struggling  with  and  understanding 
them,  using  them,  avoiding  the  penalties  of  their  in 
fraction,  enjoying  the  advantages  of  obedience  to  them. 
God's  paternal  heart  is  all  the  while,  under  "  this  gar 
ment  we  see  him  by,"  beating  fast  with  pity  and  sym 
pathy  for  those  who  temporarily  suffer  by  the  exceptional 
evils  involved  in  this  method  adopted  for  the  general 
good  ;  and  not  only  for  the  general,  good,  but  the  good 
of  every  individual  who  belongs  to  this  common  human 
ity.  But,  being  chosen,  because  it  is  for  the  general 
good,  it  would  be  an  act  of  unkindness,  on  the  part  of 
the  Deity,  to  interrupt  its  operation  when  it  presses 
cruelly  upon  the  exceptional  cases.  Nor,  indeed,  would 
these  laws,  which  are  as  yet  only  partially  known,  ever 
be  discovered  in  all  their  benignant  tendencies,  were  not 
the  violations  of  them  attended  with  frightful  conse 
quences,  which  create  earnest  and  profound  investiga 
tions,  that  carry  on  and  up  the  human  intellect  and  ad 
vance  the  interests  of  society.  And  when  I  speak  of 
disobedience  to  those  laws,  I  do  not  mean  only  wilful 
and  conscious  neglect  or  breakage,  but  also  innocent  and 
unconscious  ;  for  we  learn  from  both.  When  the  inno 
cent  suffer,  as  Christ's  own  case  sufficiently  illustrates, 
they  suffer  for  the  guilty,  and  are  the  means  of  doing 
immense  services  for  society.  Suppose  only  the  worth 
less,  and  the  vile,  and  the  ignorant,  were  subject  to 


192  THE    RE-ADJUSTMENT   OF    FAITH. 

shipwreck  and  pestilence — who  would  care  to  investi 
gate  their  causes,  or  to  allay  their  consequences  ?  And 
this  explains  another  difficulty,  which  perplexes  most, 
namely,  that  the  general  laws  of  Nature  operate  not 
only  without  any  allowance  for  exceptional  cases,  but 
quite  independently  of  moral  desert  !  I  hold  it  to  be  one 
of  the  greatest  proofs  of  God's  universal  love  for  man, 
that  he  mixes  up  the  good  and  the  bad  in  a  common  ex 
ternal  fortune,  and  refuses  to  treat  them,  so  far  as  out 
ward  circumstances  are  concerned,  in  separate  depart 
ments.  He  thus  rebukes  that  self-complacency  and 
selfishness  which  would  otherwise  corrupt  even  the  bet 
ter  portion  of  the  race.  He  says  to  the  intelligent,  the 
good,  the  orderly,  the  cautious  and  the  wise,  you  shall 
not  only  suffer  the  consequences  of  your  own  limits,  but 
you  shall  even  be  involved  in  the  external  consequences 
of  the  faults  and  mistakes  and  follies  of  the  unwise,  the 
weak,  the  precipitate  and  the  wicked,  that  you  may  un 
derstand  that  you  are  members  one  of  another,  bound 
to  be  hands  and  feet,  heart  and  brain,  prudence  and 
goodness,  not  only  for  yourselves,  but  for  all  other  men 
less  fortunate  than  yourselves.  I  behold  a  special  ten 
derness,  wisdom  and  love  in  God,  nay,  a  special  justice, 
too,  in  thus  mixing  up  all  conditions,  classes,  ages  and 
degrees  of  moral  desert,  in  a  common  calamity  to-day, 
in  a  common  benefaction  to-morrow,  that  he  may  bind 
us  together,  and  perfect  that  fusion  and  unity  which 
Christ  came  from  heaven  to  establish,  and  whose  recog 
nition  involves  the  present  and  final  happiness  of  our 
race. 

You  see,  then,  that  the  operation  of  general  laws, 
producing  painiiil  consequences,  in  frequent  and  par- 


GENERAL    LAWS    AND    A    SPECIAL    PROVIDENCE.      193 

ticular  cases,  is  maintained  by  God,  for  high  public 
reasons,  is  indeed  the  only  conceivable  plan  upon  which 
a  world,  designed  for  human  education  and  the  common 
good  of  a  whole  race,  could  go  on.  But  you  also  see,  I 
trust,  that  these  general  laws  are  not  powers,  at  any 
time,  independent  of  God's  will — a  machinery  originally 
set  a-going  by  his  hand,  and  now  moving  on  in  his  ab 
sence,  without  his  direct  knowledge  and  consent,  crush 
ing  and  tearing  whatever  comes  in  its  way.  Laws  have 
no  power  to  execute  themselves,  and  as  physical  science 
is  proving  every  day,  they  are  but  names  for  our  obser 
vations  of  the  regularity  and  order  with  which  God 
chooses — in  his  imperturbable  and  changeless,  because 
all-wise  and  holy,  will — to  govern  the  world. 

God,  then,  is  as  personally,  directly  present,  in  all  ac 
tions  that  fall  under  rule  or  law,  as  in  miracle  itself. 
Because  the  apple  of  this  autumn  falls  to  the  ground, 
as  certainly  as  it  did  from  the  first  tree  that  bore  that 
oldest  fruit,  we  are  not  to  suppose  that  the  law  of  grav 
itation  acts  by  itself  to-day,  any  more  than  it  did  the 
first  instant  it  manifested  itself.  Strictly  speaking, 
there  is  -no  law  of  gravitation  ;  it  is  our  name  for  one 
of  the  ways  in  which  God  every  instant  compels  mate 
rial  bodies  to  stand  related  to  each  other.  And  so  of 
all  general  laws.  God  is  in  them,  behind  them,  is  all 
the  force  they  have.  They  are  our  observations  of  the 
uniform  way  in  which  he  acts  under  given  circumstan 
ces,  and  he  acts  thus  uniformly,  because,  if  he  did  not, 
there  could  be  no  such  thing  as  nature,  no  such  thing 
as  observation,  experience,  human  existence.  In  short, 
when  we  quarrel  with  the  operation  of  exact  and  rigid 
method  in  God,  we  quarrel  with  the  first  and  indispen- 
9 


194  THE    RE-ADJUSTMENT    OF    FAITH. 

sable  condition  of  our  very  being.  God  himself  could 
exist  and  act  by  miracle  always.  It  were,  if  I  may  use 
such  an  expression,  easier  for  him  to  do  so.  But  man 
can  only  exist  where  God  puts  upon  himself  certain 
seeming  restraints — for  all  laws  and  rules  have  that 
aspect — for  man's  sake  ;  that  is,  to  give  him  liberty  of 
will,  opportunities  of  experience  and  education — i.  e., 
only  when  God  acts  after  a  general  plan,  made  intelli 
gible  to  his  creatures,  reckoned  upon  by  them,  and  found 
always  reliable  and  constant. 

Do  not  for  one  instant,  then,  imagine,  that  because 
general  laws,  and  what  we  call  Nature,  the  forces  of  the 
elements,  the  laws  of  matter,  remove  us  from  God,  hide 
Him  from  our  view,  and  seem  to  take  us  from  his  im 
mediate  and  direct  protection — do  not  imagine  that 
they  remove  God  from  us,  hide  us  from  his  view,  or 
really  deprive  us  of  his  immediate,  direct,  and  perfect 
care  and  love.  It  is  only  on  one  side  that  the  veil  is 
opaque  ;  only  at  one  end  that  the  action  is  indirect  and 
general.  God  knows  no  such  thing  as  general  laws, 
secondary  forces,  material  powers,  physical  agents ; 
these  are  our  names  for  his  ways  of  action,  which  to 
himself  are  always  direct,  immediate,  personal.  There 
is  not  the  least  difference  to  him  between  a  general  and 
a  special  providence.  The  difference  exists  only  to  us. 
That  part  of  God's  good  providence  which  we  can  re 
duce  to  rule,  we  call  general ;  that  part  we  cannot, 
special.  But  it  is  all  special  and  particular  to  him, 
and  it  is  literally  true,  that  "  the  hairs  of  our  head  are 
all  numbered/'  and  that  "  not  a  sparrow  falleth  to  the 
ground  without  our  Father." 

But  what,  I  hear  you  ask,  becomes  of  God's  justice, 


GENERAL    LAWS    AND    A    SPECIAL    PROVIDENCE.      195 

what  of  moral  distinctions,  what  of  a  wise  discrimina 
tion,  if  God,  being  actually  present,  and  enforcing  his 
own  will,  can  whelm  in  common  misfortunes  hundreds 
of  human  beings  unequal  in  desert,  opposite  in  charac 
ter,  vastly  dissimilar  in  wants  and  in  responsibilities  ? 
"  Master,  carest  thou  riot  that  we  perish  ?  "  Is  it  not 
a  natural  cry  for  the  good,  the  wise,  the  responsible,  to 
raise,  when  they  see  themselves  exposed  to  common 
ruin  with  the  careless,  the  worn  out,  the  useless,  or  the 
wicked  ?  Could  chance  itself  act  with  more  disregard 
of  particular  claims,  with  less  consideration  for  special 
cases,  than  God  himself  acts  upon  the  theory  now  ad 
vanced,  in  a  case,  for  instance,  like  that  of  the  Austria  ? 
My  brethren,  moral  distinctions,  exact  justice,  the 
most  delicate  and  minute  discriminations,  reign  eter 
nally,  universally,  and  with  undisturbed  accuracy, 
throughout  God's  government  on  earth  and  in  heaven 
— reign  in  the  moment  when  pestilence,  fire,  war, 
ocean,  seem  most  successfully  obliterating  their  lines 
and  confusing  their  voices.  Only  we  are  foolish  and 
blind  enough  to  look  for  their  operation  in  places  and 
modes  in  which  they  never  act,  and  where  they  are  not 
made  to  act,  while  we  fail  to  seek  them  in  places  and 
modes  in  which  they  ceaselessly  act,  and  without  the 
least  exception,  are  always  to  be  observed.  The  dis 
tinction  lies  here.  Matter,  by  God's  will,  obeys  mate 
rial  laws  ;  spirit,  spiritual  laws.  God's  government  in 
the  physical  world  is  regulated  by  physical  principles  ; 
in  the  spiritual  world,  by  spiritual  principles.  Now, 
man,  being  body  and  soul,  belongs  to  both  these  king 
doms  :  the  kingdom  of  matter,  the  kingdom  of  mind  or 
spirit.  As  a  part  of  the  kingdom  of  matter,  he  falls,  so 


196  THE    RE-ADJUSTMENT    OF    FAITH. 

far  as  his  body  is  concerned,  under  regulations  that  do 
not  have,  and  must  not  have,  any  obvious  reference  to 
his  spiritual  state.  Fire  burns  the  body  of  the  holy 
martyr,  precisely  as  if  it  were  a  lump  of  bullock's  fat  ; 
water  drowns  a  crew  of  five  hundred  precious  lives  as  if 
it  were  a  litter  of  kittens.  The  infant's  innocent  hand, 
caressing  the  pretty  flame  of  the  candle,  is  just  as 
quickly  and  pitilessly  scorched,  as  though  it  were  that 
of  a  villain,  kindling  a  fire  beneath  the  floor  of  a  house, 
that  he  might  avenge  some  injury,  or  commit  some  fur 
ther  crime.  Why  does  justice,  pity,  love,  permit  this 
gross  confounding  of  good  and  bad,  of  innocent  and 
guilty  ?  But  what  have  justice,  pity,  and  love  to  do 
in  the  sphere  of  what  is,  for  the  highest  and  kindest 
ends,  meant  to  be  brute  force,  rigid,  immoral,  uncon 
scious  matter  ?  That  is  a  part  of  creation  that  God 
has  not  made,  and  could  not  make,  without  defeating 
its  very  purpose,  otherwise  than  blind  and  deaf  to  all 
moral  distinctions.  Shall  a  good  man  expect  his  teeth 
not  to  ache,  or  only  his  conscience  not  to  ache  ?  Shall 
a  wise  man  expect  his  body  to  be  any  stronger,  less  ex 
posed  to  injury  from  heat  and  cold,  than  a  foolish  man  ? 
or  only  his  mind  to  be  stronger  and  less  exposed  to  ig 
norance  and  superstition  ?  In  short,  we  must  look 
for  moral  discriminations,  moral  equity,  moral  rewards 
and  penalties  in  the  moral  sphere  ;  in  the  fortunes  of 
the  mind,  and  heart,  and  conscience,  not  in  the  for 
tunes  of  the  body  and  limbs.  It  is  true  that  the  mind 
takes  care  of  the  body,  and  the  prudent  and  good  man 
is  not  liable  to  all  the  risks  and  accidents  that  overtake 
the  reckless.  But  no  care  can  obviate  all  the  casual 
ties  to  which  the  bodies  of  the  best  are  exposed,  and 


GENERAL    LAWS    AND    A    SPECIAL    PROVIDENCE.      197 

when  they  fall,  as  to  their  bodies,  into  the  general 
wreck  that  visits  alike  good  and  bad,  we  are  not  to  look 
for  the  moral  discrimination  exercised  towards  them,  in 
physical  quarters,  but  in  spiritual  quarters.  Sagacity, 
prudence,  calmness,  self-discipline,  give  the  wise  and 
good  an  advantage  even  in  respect  of  physical  perils  ; 
but  God  cannot,  and  does  not,  seem  any  more  anxious  to 
save  the  body  of  a  tender  woman  than  of  a  strong  man ; 
of  a  young  child,  than  of  a  worn-out  life  ;  of  a  mission 
ary,  than  of  a  heathen.  But  are  you  on  this  account 
to  suppose  that  he  makes  no  moral  distinction  between 
them  ?  Are  you  to  suppose  that  they  are  really  under 
going  the  same  inward  experience,  because  their  out 
ward  fortune  is  the  same,  or  that  the  attitude  of  their 
minds,  hearts,  consciences,  are  alike,  because  they  are 
equally  at  the  mercy  of  sea  and  fire  ?  Oh,  no.  The 
solid,  happy,  safe  earth,  did  not  present,  the  very  hour 
the  poor  Austria  was  wrapped  in  indiscriminate  names, 
greater  contrasts  of  feelings,  greater  varieties  of  moral 
condition,  greater  differences  of  relation  to  spiritual 
things,  to  truth,  honor,  virtue,  to  Christ,  God,  immor 
tality,  than  the  sufferers  by  that  common  fate,  on  the 
decks  of  that  weltering  vessel.  Justice,  a  special  prov 
idence,  the  rewards  of  virtue,  the  penalties  of  vice,  were 
all  in  the  inner  world  of  conscience,  vindicating  and  il 
lustrating  themselves,  then  and  there,  with  just  as 
much  variety  and  distinctness,  both  to  God's  eye  and 
probably  to  the  soul's  own  experience,  as  though  the 
victims  had  all,  at  the  distance  of  years,  been  dying  in 
their  different  beds.  Good  men  did  not  become  bad 
men  then  and  there,  nor  bad  men  good  men.  The  in 
nocent  did  not  lose  their  purity,  nor  the  guilty  acquire 


198  THE    RE- ADJUSTMENT    OF    FAITH. 

innocency.  The  believing  did  not  abandon  their  faith, 
nor  the  unbelieving  enjoy  its  support.  No  good  and 
pious  Christian  regretted  he  had  led  a  holy  life,  be 
cause  it  was  suddenly  to  end,  and  no  wicked  man 
thought  his  past  folly  and  crime  likely  to  be  washed 
out  by  the  sea,  or  burnt  up  in  the  fire  !  There  were  as 
many  grades  of  character,  as  many  sorts  of  heart  and 
conscience,  as  many  indicated  triumphs  of  faith,  submis 
sion,  moral  courage,  and  patience — as  many  defalcations 
of  principle,  of  disinterestedness,  of  duty  and  honor, 
illustrated  in  the  conduct  of  that  single  hour,  as  though 
the  lives  of  those  sufferers  had  been  continued  to  their 
natural  close.  God's  spirit,  Christ's  religion,  vindicat 
ed  themselves  in  that  dreadful  hour,  in  the  triumph 
ant,  believing  souls,  though  in  the  smitten  and  dying 
bodies,  of  the  pious  and  the  pure.  The  spirit  of  the 
world,  the  flesh  and  the  devil,  vindicated  themselves  in 
the  panic,  the  cowardice,  the  selfishness,  the  folly  and 
agony  of  the  impious,  the  base,  and  the  abandoned. 
God's  spiritual  laws,  his  holy  will,  his  promises  of  love, 
pity,  and  protection,  were  all  fulfilled  towards  the  souls 
of  his  children  in  that  trying  moment,  and  we  are  not  left 
to  any  rightful  murmur,  or  even  proper  wonder,  that 
his  pity,  his  special  providence,  his  fatherly  care,  were 
not  exerted.  They  were  exerted  ;  perfectly,  accurately, 
completely.  God  was  there  in  all  his  omniscience,  in 
all  his  fatherhood,  in  all  his  sovereignty.  Fire  and  sea 
obtained  no  triumph  over  him,  baffled  none  of  his  de 
sires,  defeated  none  of  his  plans,  seized  nothing  from 
his  grasp.  The  inward  peace,  the  spiritual  safety,  the 
moral  salvation  of  his  saints,  was  far  beyond  the  reach 
of  accident,  and  could  be  mixed  up  in  no  promiscuous 


GENERAL    LAWS   AND    A    SPECIAL    PROVIDENCE.      199 

fate.  And  it  is  so  everywhere  and  always.  General 
laws  do  not  forbid  or  hinder  a  special  providence  ;  there 
is  no  difference  between  them. 

One  other  reflection.  God  does  not  think  of  death 
as  we  think  of  it.  Indeed,  it  does  not  exist  to  him. 
What  we  see  as  men  dropping  out  of  existence,  he  sees 
as  men  springing  into  new  and  higher  life  ;  the  fire 
that  parts  their  vital  thread  to  us,  does  to  him  but  melt 
their  chain  of  imprisonment.  What  call  for  inter 
ference  is  there  to  God,  who  sees  five  hundred  souls 
making  a  short  passage  to  another  state  of  existence, 
where  we  see  only  five  hundred  precious  lives  extin 
guished  ? 

Let  me  add  two  or  three  special  thoughts  more  im 
mediately  connected  with  this  particular  calamity.  In 
the  recent  triumphs  of  man  over  matter,  time,  space 
and  sea,  there  has  been,  perhaps,  too  much  spiritual 
pride  ;  it  may  be  that  God's  providence  has  kindly  re 
buked  a  general  peril  for  our  souls,  in  this  sudden  dis 
aster  upon  the  very  element  where  our  victories  were 
lately  won. 

Again,  the  sufferers  by  this  calamity  were  not  Amer 
icans,  but  foreigners.  It  was  not  American  recklessness 
that  occasioned  the  disaster ;  and  this  may  serve  as  a 
useful  rebuke  to  the  other  side  of  the  world,  too  fond  of 
charging  us  with  sins  that,  to  say  the  least,  are  not  pe 
culiar  to  us.  But,  more  especially,  the  sympathies 
drawn  forth  from  our  own  people  towards  the  noble  and 
heroic  sufferers  by  this  event,  the  display  many  of  them 
made,  of  brave  and  gentle  humanity,  may  have  a  benefi 
cent  tendency  to  unite  us  more  cordially  with  our 
foreign  population,  so  valuable,  so  large,  often  so  misun- 


200  THE    RE-ADJUSTMENT    OF    FAITH. 

derstood  a  portion  of  our  people.  God  grant,  that  their 
homes,  full  of  wailing  and  sorrow,  may  call  forth  towards 
the  whole  German  race  in  America,  a  heartier  sympathy, 
and  a  more  cordial  fraternity  ! 

Finally,  brethren,  on  shore  and  at  home,  God's  laws 
are  now  silently  operating  in  the  same  temper  and  spirit 
in  which  they  worked  on  board  that  fated  vessel.  A 
sea  of  destruction  surrounds  us  ;  the  flames  of  tempta 
tion  are  lapping  our  garments  ;  the  very  tabernacles  we 
dwell  in,  are  on  fire  with  our  appetites.  What  matters 
a  few  days,  months,  or  years,  in  which  we  are  still  to 
live — seeing  that  our  death-doom  is  already  pronounced, 
our  mortal  ruin  fixecl  and  inevitable  ?  Sixty-seven 
escaped  from  the  Austria  ;  not  one  shall  escape  from 
this  ocean-bound,  fire-hearted,  doomed  world  we  inhabit- 
"  Master,  carest  thou  not  that  we  perish  ?"  we  may  just 
as  reasonably  cry  as  those  who  saw  death  at  their  very 
side.  Invisibly  he  is  at  ours  ;  only  a  moment  for  God, 
separates  us  from  our  fate  !  But  God  does  care,  cares 
most  anxiously,  paternally,  tenderly — cares  every  day 
and  hour,  that  we  perish  not.  So  far  as  we  neglect  our 
duty,  darken  our  consciences,  harden  our  hearts,  reject 
our  Saviour,  break  our  Maker's  laws,  stain  our  bodies, 
abuse  our  earthly  home,  squander  our  time,  bury  our 
talents,  we  are  now  perishing.  The  wildest  ocean  could 
not  quench,  the  fiercest  fire  could  not  burn,  as  sin  now 
quenches  the  souPs  light,  as  sin  now  shrivels  the  soul's 
life.  God  is,  meanwhile,  imploring  us  by  his  Son,  by 
our  own  consciences,  by  his  written  and  by  his  unwrit 
ten  word,  not  to  perish — to  clothe^  ourselves  in  the 
adamantine  garments  of  righteousness  that  cannot 
burn,  when  hay  and  stubble  shall  turn  to  ashes — to  put 


GENERAL   LAWS   AND    A    SPECIAL    PROVIDENCE.      201 

on  that  robe  of  faith  our  Lord  gave  Peter,  which  shall 
buoy  us  up  beyond  the  power  of  any  waves.  Behold, 
Christ,  no  longer  asleep  in  the  hinder  part  of  the  boat, 
but  here  awake — standing  behind  the  thin  veil  of  these 
elements,  that  are  his  body  and  his  blood,  and  saying  to 
the  storms  of  the  world,  "  Peace,  be  still "  ;  saying,  in 
answer  to  your  prayers,  "  Master,  carest  thou  not  that 
we  perish  ?  " — "  He  that  belie veth  in  me,  though  he 
were  dead,  yet  shall  he  live  ;  and  whosoever  liveth  and 
believeth  in  me,  shall  never  die/' 

OCTOBER  1,  1858, 


UHI7BESITT 


III. 

MAN. 


III. 

MAN. 
SERMON  XIII. 

HUMAN  NATURE— ITS  DIGNITY. 

"  For  what  man  knoweth  the  things  of  a  man,  save  the  spirit  of  man  which 
is  in  him  ?  " — 1  COR.  ii.  11. 

DIFFERENT  questions  demand  different  tribunals 
and  different  witnesses.  Some  are  to  be  tried  by  the 
Scriptures,  others  by  universal  reason  ;  others,  still,  by 
positive  experts.  If  we  carry  a  question  of  law  to  a 
court  of  equity,  or  a  question  of  fact  to  a  court  of  law, 
a  question  of  physics  to  a  spiritual  tribunal,  or  a  ques 
tion  of  religious  experience  before  a  bench  of  mathe 
maticians,  we  shall  make  no  progress  towards  a  just  de 
cision.  In  like  manner,  questions  strictly  of  our  own 
day  cannot  be  settled  by  appeal  to  the  past ;  questions 
of  statesmanship,  by  abstract  principles  ;  nor  questions 
of  absolute  morals,  by  expediency.  Thus,  questions 
touching  human  nature,  are  not  to  be  debated  exegeti- 
cally,  and  by  appeals  to  Scripture — but  psychologically, 


206  THE    RE-ADJUSTMENT    OF    FAITH. 

and  by  appeals  to  consciousness  ;  for,  as  our  text  well 
says,  "  What  man  knoweth  the  things  of  a  man,  but 
the  spirit  of  man  that  is  in  him  ?  " 

But  is  not  the  question  of  human  nature  a  theolog 
ical  question,  and  therefore  to  be  determined  by  the 
arbiter  of  all  theological  disputes — the  Scriptures  ? 
Let  us  consider  this  point  a  moment. 

The  settlement  of  any  of  our  modern  questions  in 
theology  by  an  appeal  to  the  Scriptures,  is  a  much  less 
easy  method  of  adjudication  than  might  at  first  appear. 
The  fairer,  the  more  sagacious  and  learned,  the  investi 
gator  is,  the  more  conscious  will  he  be  of  the  enormous 
difficulty  of  arriving  at  the  actual  teachings  of  the  New 
Testament  in  regard  to  opinions  that  have  first  become 
important  long  since  the  Scriptures  were  written,  and 
upon  which,  accordingly,  they  express  no  formal  and 
direct  decision.  Notwithstanding  this,  there  is  a  half- 
dishonest  and  half-superstitious  way  of  forcing  texts 
that  sound  decisive,  into  the  service  of  sectarian  preju 
dice,  which,  though  very  much  in  vogue,  every  frank  and 
truth-loving  spirit  must  despise  and  condemn. 

Any  thing  can  be  proved  out  of  the  Scriptures  by 
word-mongers  to  the  satisfaction  of  those  who  already 
agree  with  them.  What  can  be  more  astonishing  than 
that  the  advocates  of  Trinitarianism  and  Unitarianism, 
of  Calvinism  and  Arminianism,  of  eternal  punishment 
and  universal  salvation,  of  Episcopacy  and  Congrega 
tionalism,  should  all  appeal  with  equal  confidence  to 
the  Scriptures  as  being  unqualifiedly  on  their  own  side  ? 
The  views  of  these  disputants  are  directly  contradictory 
and  exclusive  of  each  other ;  and  yet,  with  absolute 
boldness,  they  not  only  assert  that  their  own  opinions 


HUMAN    NATURE.  207 

are  the  clear  and  express  teaching  of  the  New  Testa 
ment,  but  that  the  study  of  the  Bible  alone  has  brought 
them  to  these  several  opposite  conclusions  !  Possibly 
they  think  so,  for  it  is  not  easy  to  know  whence  we  de 
rive 'our  opinions.  But,  I  am  confident  that  no  man 
living  gets,  or  can  get,  his  theological  opinions  exclu 
sively,  or  even  mainly,  from  the  Scriptures.  The  judg 
ment  is  forestalled  ;  the  mind  early  taken  possession  of 
by  prevailing  views,  the  expectations  shaped,  the  belief 
settled,  long  before  we  come  to  read  the  Scriptures  with 
critical  attention.  The  whole  experience  of  ages,  the 
light  of  science,  the  influence  of  political  ideas,  the 
conclusions  of  practical  wisdom — as  well  as  the  author 
ity  of  traditions,  established  churches  and  sacred  usages 
— combine  to  prepossess  us  in  this  age  with  certain 
opinions,  antecedent  to  scriptural  investigations,  which 
color  and  communicate  their  own  perspective  to  the 
sacred  records  ;  and,  on  examining  them,  we  find  there 
what  we  look  for — arguments  for  conclusions  already 
adopted.  The  Trinitarian  finds  his  pre-assumed  Trin 
ity  ;  the  Unitarian  his  pre-assumed  Unity ;  the  Cal- 
vinist  his  predetermined  total  depravity  ;  the  Arminian 
his  predetermined  free-will.  It  is  quite  impossible  that 
a  collection  of  writings  of  any  description,  sacred  or 
profane,  written  two  thousand  years  ago,  should  throw 
a  direct  light  upon  questions  of  our  own  day.  The 
spirit  and  temper,  the  drift  and  tenor  of  the  New  Testa 
ment  may  be  indirectly  decisive  of  all  such  questions, 
and  it  is  this  which  candid  minds  and  single-eyed  lovers 
of  truth  will  look  to  ;  but  so  long  as  the  letter  of  the 
Scriptures  is  appealed  to,  to  settle  questions  which  were 
never  before  the  minds  of  their  authors — -so  long  we 


208  THE    RE-ADJUSTMENT    OF    FAITH. 

shall  have  fruitless  controversies,  and  bitter  strifes  of 
opinion. 

I  do  not  hesitate  to  say  that  our  questions,  the  the 
ological  disputes  of  this,  or  of  any  recent  age,  were 
never  in,  or  before,  the  minds  of  the  scriptural  writers. 
They  never  agitated,  or  anticipated,  our  question  of 
unity  and  trinity  ;  of  original  sin  and  innate  rectitude  ; 
of  eternal  punishment  and  final  restoration.  •  They  had 
questions  that  looked  like  these,  or  which  may  be  tor 
tured  into  a  resemblance  to  these,  but  they  were  not 
the  same,  nor  any  thing  near  the  same  ;  and  we  can 
honestly  expect  little  positive  and  direct  help  from  the 
Scriptures  in  adjudicating  these  modern  disputes.  I 
do  not  say  that  they  are  not  very  important — just  as 
important  as  the  scriptural  disputes — or  that  the  gen 
eral  tenor  of  Scripture  does  not  sustain  one  or  the 
other  side,  but  only  that  they  are  not  fairly  to  be  set 
tled  by  textual  authority,  and  cannot  honestly  be  re 
ferred  to  that  tribunal,  as  if  it  had  distinctly  anticipated 
and  adjudged  them. 

The  proper  use  of  the  Scriptures  is  this  :  to  fill  our 
selves  with  the  spirit  of  them  ;  their  pure  morality  and 
exalted  piety,  their  great  and  undisputed  facts  and 
principles,  their  general  drift  and  aim  ;  and  then,  thus 
furnished,  to  allow  our  minds,  in  the  formation  of 
specific  opinions,  the  freest  play,  which  our  total  gen 
eral  culture,  knowledge  of  human  nature,  experience 
of  life,  acquaintance  with  philosophy  and  the  general 
illumination  of  the  age,  demand  or  inspire.  Indeed, 
this  is  a  method  followed  by  all,  and  necessarily  so,  to 
some  degree  :  timidly,  inconsistently,  and  with  theo 
retical  protest,  by  most  ;  courageously,  consistently, 


HUMAN    NATURE.  209 

and  openly — with  full  conviction  of  its  propriety — by  a 
few.  It  is  not  to  be  inferred  from  this  view  that  the 
New  Testament  teaches  nothing  definite  ;  that  it  has 
no  doctrines  ;  that  its  truth  is  not  inspired,  or  its  au 
thority  not  decisive  ;  that  its  spirit  is  the  only  thing 
that  binds  us.  I  freely  confess  my  rational  allegiance 
to  the  letter  of  Christ's  teachings,  as  well  as  the  spirit 
of  them,  although  I  cannot  extend  this  deference  to  the 
letter  of  his  disciples7  teachings.  But  what  I  maintain 
is  that  the  letter  is  silent  upon  our  disputes,  and  that 
it  is  only  inferentially  and  in  the  help  of  his 'spirit  that 
we  can  settle  our  later  controversies  by  the  New  Tes 
tament. 

This  conclusion  is  very  strongly  forced  upon  me, 
when  I  look  into  the  Bible  for  its  doctrine  of  human 
nature.  Considering  the  obstinacy  of  assertion  on  both 
sides,  it  is  really  extraordinary  how  little  is  said  there 
about  human  nature,  and  how  contradictory  of  itself 
that  little  is,  supposing  our  triangular  question  of  total 
depravity,  hereditary  depravity,  or  original  rectitude, 
to  be  the  question  referred  to.  I  presume  there  is  not 
the  least  real  incongruity,  and  that  the  inconsistency 
all  proceeds  from  our  insisting  that  the  writers  are  in 
tending  to  settle  our  questions,  when  they  are  speaking 
of  quite  other  matters.  Imagine  two  persons  of  dignity, 
B  and  C,  equally  acquainted  with  another  man,  A,  to 
be  earnestly  conversing  about  him.  B  says  indignant 
ly,  in  view  of  some  recent  misbehavior  on  his  part, 
"  Well,  what  a  bad  fellow  A  is  !  "  "  Yes/'  replies  C, 
"  still  he  has  a  good  heart ! "  to  which  B  reluctantly 
assents.  Is  there  any  real  inconsistency  here  ?  But 
now  imagine  two  overhearers  of  this  short  colloquy  to 


210  THE    RE-ADJUSTMENT   OF    FAITH. 

assume  that  B  and  C  were  carrying  on  a  metaphysical 
discussion  as  to  the  original  character  of  human  na 
ture  ;  one  maintaining  that  B.  when  he  called  A  a  bad 
fellow,  characterized  his  nature,  and  consequently  hu 
man  nature,  as  utterly  depraved  ;  while  the  other  main 
tained  that  when  C  declared  A  to  have  a  good  heart, 
he  pronounced  a  general  eulogy  on  the  rectitude  of 
human  nature.  Suppose  this,  and  you  have  a  fair  ex 
ample  of  the  way  in  which  the  scattered  sayings,  found 
in  the  Scripture.*,  for  and  against  men,  their  characters 
and  state,  have  been  abused  by  theologians.  Man  is 
said,  in  the  first  chapter  of  Genesis,  to  have  been  made 
in  the  image  of  God — referring,  doubtless,  to  his  gifts 
of  reason  and  conscience  ;  but  a  very  unfair  and  un 
reasonable  use  is  made  of  this  passage,  when  the  whole 
doctrine  of  the  dignity  of  human  nature,  as  opposed  to 
the  doctrine  of  the  fall,  is  built  up  upon  it.  In  the 
same  book.  God  is  said  to  have  cursed  the  ground,  on 
account  of  Adam's  sin  ;  but  what  a  monstrous  infer 
ence  is  it,  that  he  cursed  him  and  his  race,  and  allowed 
our  whole  nature  to  be  changed,  on  this  account  ? 
Again,  Christ  calls  certain  men  children  of  God  ;  and 
certain  other  men  children  of  the  devil !  Are  we  to 
presume  that  he  was,  in  either  case,  expressing  any 
opinion  upon  the  metaphysical  question  of  native  de 
pravity  or  original  goodness  ?  How  eagerly  have  we 
snatched  at  the  text  in  Ecclesiastes,  "  Lo  !  this  only 
have  I  found,  that  God  hath  made  man  upright ;  but 
they  have  sought  out  many  inventions," — as  a  distinct 
and  positive  decision  of  this  question.  When,  any  one 
who  will  honestly  examine  the  context,  will  see  that 
Solomon  had  a  very  low  idea  of  mankind,  and  a  worse 


HUMAN    NATURE.  211 

one  of  womankind,  expressed  in  the  very  previous  verse, 
with  a  bitterness  never  exceeded  :  "  One  man  among  a 
thousand  have  I  found  ;  but  a  woman  among  all  these 
have  I  not  found." 

On  the  other  hand,  the  famous  phrase  in  Ephesians 
ii.  3,  "  And  were  by  nature  (or  naturally)  children  of 
wrath,  even  as  others," — which  was,  as  any  ordinary  can 
dor  will  see,  no  expression  of  Paul's  opinion  touching 
the  constitutional  state  of  human  nature,  but  only  a 
passing  criticism  of  the  actual  immorality  of  the  Gen 
tiles — has  been  made  a  very  corner-stone  of  a  theory 
that  "  all  men  are  born  under  Grod's  wrath  and  curse, 
and  so  made  liable  to  all  the  miseries  of  this  life  and 
the  pains  of  hell  for  ever." 

I  confess  that  I  must  take  the  same  kind  of  excep 
tion  to  the  sweeping  inferences  drawn  by  Dr.  Channing 
and  other  noble  minds,  from  Peter's  famous  sentence, 
"  Honor  all  men."  He  adds,  you  remember,  "  Honor 
the  king."  Might  we  not  as  reasonably  imagine  him  to 
be  expressing  an  opinion  in  favor  of  monarchical  insti 
tutions  in  that  phrase,  as  in  defence  of  human  nature 
in  the  other  ? 

The  simple  truth  is,  that  our  question  touching  hu 
man  nature  is  not  a  scriptural  question  ;  but  a  question 
of  philosophy,  of  experience,  of  natural  religion,  of  his 
tory,  of  metaphysics  and  psychology.  The  Scriptures, 
indeed,  throw  light  upon  it,  in  their  whole  tenor,  object 
and  spirit.  Christ's  character  and  mission  illuminates 
it.  The  influences  and  spirit  of  Christianity  are  indis 
pensable  to  its  solution  ;  but  it  is,  after  all,  not  a  textual 
question,  nor  mainly  a  scriptural  question,  and  so  long 
as  we  hope  to  settle  it  with  concordance^  lexicon  and 


212  THE    RE-ADJUSTMENT    OF    FAITH. 

grammar,  we  shall  only  belittle  ourselves  and  the  sub 
ject,  and  help  to  perpetuate  the  narrowness,  supersti 
tion  and  literality,  which  are  the  chief  hindrances  to 
truth's  progress.  The  question  belongs  to  another 
court.  "  For  what  man  knoweth  the  things  of  a  man, 
but  the  spirit  of  man  that  is  in  him  ?  " 

What,  then,  is  the  real,  practical  question  touching 
human  nature,  as  it  lies  in  the  mind,  and  affects  the 
civilization  of  our  own  day  ?  It  is  not  the  question  of 
the  Scriptures,  which  was  purely  an  inquiry  about  hu 
man  character.  Men  are  spoken  of  as  good  and  bad, 
as  sinners  and  saints,  as  children  of  God  and  of  the 
devil  there,  purely  with  reference  to  their  character, 
and  without  the  least  reference  to  their  nature.  The 
difference  is  easily  shown.  You  do  not  discuss  the  na 
ture  of  the  horse,  his  admirable  adaptation  by  strength 
and  docility,  by  speed  and  weight,  by  beauty  and  use, 
to  human  wants — when  you  are  criticizing  this  or  that 
horse,  as  good  or  bad.  If  the  question  were  to  come 
up  whether  camels  were  not  better  than  horses,  or  ma 
chines  than  either,  for  all  locomotive  or  draught  pur 
poses,  then  it  would  be  directly  in  order,  to  consider  the 
nature  of  the  horse,  his  capacity  for  improvement  in 
breed,  his  essential  and  relative  merits  as  compared 
with  other  animals,  or  instruments — with  a  view  to  de 
cide  whether  true  economy  should  not  abandon  his  use 
and  exterminate  his  species.  There  is  an  obvious  dis 
tinction,  then,  between  nature  and  character.  Ordi 
narily,  the  question  of  human  character  is  a  much  more 
practical  and  important  question,  than  that  of  human 
nature.  But  there  are  times  and  occasions,  when  the 
question  of  human  nature  is  far  more  important  and 


HUMAN    NATURE.  213 

more  practical  than  the  other.  Because,  the  treatment, 
correction  and  improvement  of  human  character  and  of 
society,  by  means  of  it,  may,  and  often  does,  depend 
vastly  upon  the  accuracy,  justness  and  truth  of  our 
knowledge  and  estimate  of  human  nature. 

As  to  the  question  of  human  character,  there  cannot 
well  be  any  essential  difference  of  opinion  among  people 
who  mingle  freely  in  the  world.  Different  people  have 
different  ways  of  talking  about  it,  according  to  tempera 
ment,  discrimination  and  habit  ;  but  they  cannot  think 
very  differently  about  it,  more  than  they  can  differ 
about  the  climate,  or  the  weather,  or  other  staring  facts. 
Men  are  good  and  bad,  mixed  creatures  all.  In  that 
part  of  themselves  in  which  spontaneousness  prevails, 
they  are  more  or  less  good — with  a  decided  leaning  to 
what  we  admire  or  like  ;  in  that  part  in  which  will  and 
responsibility  reign,  they  are  more  or  less  good  and 
bad,  with  a  decided  leaning  to  what  is  not  approvable 
and  right.  But  as  the  spontaneous,  irresponsible  por 
tion  of  man  is  far  larger  than  the  voluntary  and  moral 
portion,  there  is — 1  do  not  say,  more  merit  than  de 
merit,  but — more  good  than  bad  in  all,  or,  at  any  rate, 
in  most  men,  that  is  to  say,  in  man  generally  considered. 
Thus  the  affections,  sympathies,  motives,  apprehensions 
— all  that  part  of  man  which  acts  spontaneously — are 
generous,  kind,  prompt  and  reliable.  We  universally 
trust  them.  Where  self-interest  is  not  aroused,  we  ex 
pect  men  to  be  kind,  courteous,  pitiful.  Why,  then, 
has  humanity  so  evil  a  reputation  ?  For  this  reason. 
The  good  part  of  human  character  (if  we  ought  not 
rather  to  say  human  nature  ;  and  yet,  as  we  speak  of 
men  and  women,  and  not  of  man  or  humanity,  char- 


214  THE    RE-ADJUSTMENT    OF    FAITH. 

acter  is  the  more  accurate  phrase) — we  have  less  occa 
sion  to  praise,  than  we  have  to  blame  the  bad  part, 
just  as  we  note  our  ill  days  and  not  our  well  ones  ;  and 
make  conspicuous  public  buildings  of  our  courts,  and 
jails  and  hospitals — while  our  happy  private  homes,  un 
noticed,  cover  ten  thousand  times  over  their  area  of 
ground.  This  is  the  reason  why,  judging  by  ordinary 
talk,  you  might  think  men  practically  had  a  low  opinion 
of  their  race  ;  that  ordinarily  they  have  occasion  to  talk 
only  of  that  part  of  man  in  which  he  is  confessedly 
weak. 

There  was  lately  a  weekly  newspaper  published  in 
New  York,  probably  by  English  capitalists,  whose  ob 
ject  I  presume  to  have  been,  though  it  was  not  confessed, 
to  divert  emigration  from  the  United  States  into  the 
Canadas.  Into  this  paper,  most  ably  conducted,  were 
transferred  reliable  accounts,  copied  out  of  all  the  news 
papers  from  all  quarters  of  the  country,  of  the  murders, 
robberies,  slave-insurrections,  planters'  cruelties,  elec 
tion-riots,  party-frauds,  defalcations,  sufferings  of  emi 
grants,  crash  of  banks,  insecurity  of  property — in  short, 
every  thing  that  could  give  an  unfavorable,  discourag 
ing  and  disgusting  view  of  American  life  and  society. 
So  far  as  I  have  studied  this  mortifying  periodical — 
which,  it  is  really  creditable  to  our  toleration,  enjoyed 
a  free  existence — it  stated  nothing  that  was  not  true. 
But,  it  absolutely,  and  of  purpose,  excluded  from  its 
columns  every  thing  that  painted  the  prosperity,  order, 
freedom,  industry,  progress,  humanity,  good  morals  or 
piety  of  the  land.  Now  let  a  German  or  an  English 
man  take  this  newspaper,  containing  nothing  false,  but 
devoted  exclusively  to  the  collection  of  what  is  disgust- 


HUMAN   NATURE.  215 

.  ing,  criminal  and  dangerous  in  our  political  and  eco 
nomic  condition,  and  form  his  estimate  of  American  in 
stitutions  and  American  character  from  it,  and  he  would 
do  precisely  what  theorists  do  when  they  accept  the 
ordinary  confession  and  criticism  of  human  faults  and 
weaknesses,  as  man's  complete  and  reliable  account  of 
his  whole  self.  The  confession  and  criticism  may  be 
ever  so  true  ;  but  it  is  not  the  whole  truth,  nor  half  the 
truth,  and,  in  the  full  light  of  what  is  good,  amiable  and 
encouraging  in  human  character,  the  bad  sinks  into  a 
very  hopeful  disproportion.  And  this  is  not  my  judg 
ment,  but  yours  and  everybody's,  when  we  take  time  to 
think  about  it,  as  we  seldom  do. 

But  dropping  here  the  question  of  human  charac 
ter,  the  very  different  one  of  human  nature  remains. 
This  is  comparatively  a  new  question,  considered  prac 
tically.  True,  in  the  Eastern  nations,  it  was  early  and 
greatly  discussed  by  philosophers.  That  eternal  prob 
lem  of  the  origin  of  evil  always  demands  solution,  and 
the  hypothesis  of  a  good  and  an  evil  principle  struggling 
for  mastery  in  the  universe,  represented  by  spirit  and 
matter — one  a  blessed,  and  the  other  a  cursed  thing — 
furnished  at  least  an  adroit  evasion  of  the  difficulty. 
Doubtless  this  speculation  of  the  Hindoos,  and  of  the 
Oriental  nations  generally,  growing  out  of  their  soft  and 
meditative  temperament,  confirmed  their  fatalistic  ten 
dencies,  and  in  some  degree  accounts  for  the  unprogres- 
sive  and  monotonous  state  of  their  society.  But  in  our 
day,  when  matter  has  come  to  occupy  a  thousand  times 
the  attention  it  ever  did  before,  and  if  bad,  ought  to  be 
a  thousand  times  more  mischievous,  we  have  been  com 
pelled  to  acknowledge  its  beneficent  influence  on  human 


216        THE  RE- ADJUSTMENT  OF  FAITH. 

character  and  prospects.  Its  development,  use,  and 
transformation,  is  a  chief  occasion  and  cause  of  the 
education,  advancement,  and  happiness  of  man.  In 
like  manner,  other  things,  once  deemed  evil  in  the  con 
stitution  of  the  glohe — its  wide  and  stormy  oceans,  vast 
deserts,  rugged  soils,  volcanoes,  and  earthquakes — phy 
sical  geography,  in  the  light  of  a  better  economic  and 
political  science,  has  discovered  to  be  blessings  in  dis 
guise,  and  wonderfully  fitted  to  the  wants  and  felicita 
tion  of  the  race.  In  a  parallel  way,  the  appetites,  pas 
sions  and  properties,  even  the  jealousies,  suspicions,  and 
apprehensions  of  humanity,  are  gradually  getting  to  be 
understood  as  indispensable  elements  of  our  nature,  and 
in  their  proper  place,  and  under  control  quite  pos 
sible  to  us,  altogether  good,  and  not  at  all  evil  ;  not 
one  of  them  to  be  wished  out  of  the  marvellous  com 
pound  ;  not  one  of  them,  otherwise  than  fundamentally 
important  and  essential.  That  some  of  these  powers 
are  subject  to  excess  and  liable  to  explosion,  is  no  more 
decisive  of  their  evil  origin  or  bad  character,  than  the 
prevailing  ophthalmia  of  Egypt  is  a  proof  of  the  poor 
design  of  the  human  eye  ;  or  the  consumption  of  New 
England,  of  the  bad  planning  of  the  human  lungs  ;  or 
the  occasional  devastation  by  fire,  of  its  hellish  origin  ; 
or  the  now  and  then  destructive  copiousness  of  rain,  of 
its  malevolent  source.  Human  nature  has  enormous 
elements  of  danger  in  it,  as  the  sea  has  storms,  wrecks, 
ruin,  in  its  mighty  and  beneficent  depths.  The  pas 
sions  of  man,  glorious  and  divine  endowments  as  they 
are,  are  betraying,  perilous,  and  forever  requiring  watch 
and  ward.  But  the  vessel  of  war  might  as  well  sail 
without  its  powder-magazine,  or  adduce  the  incessant 


HUMAN    NATURE.  2l7 

care  demanded  in  its  use  and  guardianship,  as  a  proof 
of  the  necessity  of  abandoning  it,  as  human  nature  al 
lege  the  excesses  of  human  weakness,  folly  and  crime, 
as  evidences  of  its  diabolic,  disordered,  and  imperfect 
constitution.  Its  constitution  is  good  and  only  good, 
divine  and  only  divine  ;  but  it  is  in  the  hands  of  a 
growing,  progressive,  and  inexperienced  creature,  who 
neither  at  once  understands  it,  nor  could  be  expected 
to  understand  it  ;  who  uses  it,  much  as  a  child  uses  his 
tool-box,  to  cut  his  fingers,  tear  his  clothes,  and  bruise 
the  furniture,  but  who  presently  learns  to  hammer,  saw, 
and  plane,  in  a  way  that  proves  his  tools  not  of  a  ma 
lignant  or  superfluous  origin. 

The  alleged  depravity,  or  the  constitutionally  disor 
dered  state,  by  some  theologians  attributed  to  human 
nature,  has  led  to  practical  results  of  a  very  sad  and 
disastrous  sort.  You  can  easily  see  what  different  pol 
icies,  education,  government,  police,  society  would  pur 
sue,  according  as  it  adopted  the  theory  that  human 
passions,  appetites,  and  instincts,  were  to  be  withstood 
and  suppressed,  as  malignant  and  devilish  in  their  ori 
gin,  or  directed  and  controlled  as  merely  blind  and  ex 
cessive,  while  flowing  from  a  pure  and  divine  source. 
You  see,  for  instance,  a  will  in  your  child,  which  tends 
to  obstinacy.  You  may  either  call  the  will  evil,  or  you 
may  only  call  the'  obstinacy  evil.  If  you  call  the  will 
evil,  you  will  proceed  to  break  it  ;  and  in  this  process 
you  will  either  fail,  besides  arousing  all  the  possible 
hatefulness  which  injustice  and  ignorance  can  evoke,  or 
by  a  mightier  force,  you  will  succeed,  and  crush,  not 
only  the  will,  but  the  whole  nature  you  dealt  with. 
You  meant  to  tear  off  a  crooked  branch,  and  you  pulled 
10 


218  THE    RE-ADJUSTMENT    OF    FAITH. 

over  the  whole  tree.  If,  on  the  contrary,  you  merely 
call  the  obstinacy  evil,  you  will  spare  and  respect  the 
will,  and  endeavor,  by  aid  of  the  intellect  and  con 
science,  to  teach  it  self-control,  and  direct  it  where  all 
its  vigor  and  determination  will  be  useful.  Thus,  ob 
stinacy  is  converted  into  firmness,  and  the  ungoverned 
boy  becomes  the  self-controlled  hero  !  In  like  manner, 
anger  is  the  excess  of  indignation  at  injustice  and  wrong 
— jealousy,  excess  of  love.  There  are  no  qualities  of  a 
bad  origin  in  human  nature,  any  more  than  in  physical 
nature  ;  and  for  the  same  reason,  that  God  made  them 
both. 

The  growing  perception  of  this  truth  is  changing  the 
temper  of  the  physical  sciences,  and  will  ultimately  change 
moral  and  theological  science.  How  reverent  and  watch 
ful  of  law  has  science  become  !  how  believing  in  the  be 
neficence  and  divinity  of  nature  !  Adoring  worshippers 
sit  before  the  microscope,  the  photographic  mirror,  the 
geologic  strata.  There  is  nothing  common  or  un 
clean.  "  Dirt,"  as  was  well  said,  "  is  matter  in  the 
wrong  place."  There  is  no  dirt,  when  matter  is  kept 
in  its  proper  place.  There  is  only  order,  beauty,  be 
neficence,  in  physical  nature  or  human  nature,  when 
considered  in  their  design.  How  tenderly  and  patiently 
has  medicine,  once  so  bold,  aggressive,  and  alert,  learned 
to  wait  on  nature,  following  her  hints,  assisting  her  ef 
forts,  and  relying  chiefly  on  her  own  healing  and  recu 
perative  powers  ?  And  how  has  politics  grown  gener 
ous  and  favorable  to  human  rights  and  human  improve 
ment,  in  precise  proportion  as  it  has  learned  to  trust 
man,  to  educate,  encourage,  and  bless  him,  instead  of 


HUMAN    NATURE.  219 

standing  over  him  with  sword  and  bayonet,  addressing 
his  fears,  and  repressing  his  hopes  and  his  faculties  ? 

Modem  civilization,  so  far  as  it  is  new,  encouraging, 
and  successful,  is  based  on  faith  in  human  nature,  as 
God's  work,  and  not  as  Satan's  botch.  And  this  faith  is 
at  the  root  of  all  reforms,  as  want  of  it  is  at  the  bottom 
of  all  resistance  to  light,  freedom,  happiness,  and  is  the 
perpetuation  of  conventional  wrongs  and  prejudices. 

Let  us  not  suppose,  that  to  maintain  this  great  and 
glorious  doctrine  in  all  its  integrity  and  encouragement, 
it  is  necessary  to  keep  any  facts  out  of  view,  or  to  main 
tain  any  one-sided  and  uncandid  opinion. 

Who,  for  instance,  will  wish  to  conceal,  or  to  deny 
the  hereditary  descent  of  dangerous  propensities,  any 
more  than  of  good  and  beautiful  dispositions  ?  We  do 
not  deny  that  goitre,  consumption,  gout,  are  hereditary, 
but  we  do  not  allow  that  this  shows  the  human  body  to 
be  depraved  in  its  origin  or  constitution.  When  we 
take  away  the  subjects  of  these  diseases  from  the  cir 
cumstances  that  produced  them,  they  recover,  and  in  a 
generation  or  two  their  diseases  are  extinguished.  There 
is  a  resistance  to  them  in  the  body,  which,  assisted, 
may  overcome  them.  Obedient  to  this  analogy,  I  would 
not  deny  hereditary  tendencies  to  rage,  to  jealousy,  to 
insanity.  The  mind  may  be  diseased,  and  through  its 
connection  with  the  body  may  be  propagated  in  a  dis 
eased  condition.  But  this  proves  nothing  against  the 
worth,  or  rectitude,  or  wholesomeness  of  human  nature, 
more  than  a  murrain  among  sheep  establishes  the  gen 
eral  defeat  of  that  creature's  final  cause  to  produce 
wool  and  food  for  man.  We  recognize  these  hereditary 
defects  as  diseases,  excrescences,  perversions  of  human 


220  THE    RE-ADJUSTMENT    OF    FAITH. 

nature,  and  treat  them  as  such  ;  not  as  its  normal,  or 
dinary,  and  wholesome  condition.  The  real  question 
is,  how  deep  and  how  common  is  this  alleged  disease  ? 
Is  it  total,  or  vast,  or  general  ?  Has  it  not  been  im 
mensely  exaggerated  ?  Has  not  the  disposition  to  treat 
the  soul  as  sick,  been  at  least  as  common  an  error  as  to 
treat  the  body  as  sick — and  have  not  both  of  them 
been  over-dosed  and  over-watched  ?  It  is  the  want  of 
food,  and  not  of  medicine,  which  has  impoverished 
whole  races  and  tribes.  Hereditary  diseases,  virulent 
as  they  are,  are  not  the  common  causes  of  physical  de 
generacy,  but  bad  habits,  self-indulgence,  poor  diet,  or 
hardship  and  toil.  And  so  of  the  soul.  Its  hereditary 
disorders,  not  to  be  denied,  are  not  its  chief  difficulties, 
but  its  present  want  of  light,  education,  encouragement, 
confidence,  sympathy,  and  help.  We  have  heard  Christ 
called  the  Physician  of  souls,  until  we  have  forgotten 
that  his  more  common  office  is  that  of  the  shepherd  of 
the  sheep.  To  give  our  daily  food,  not  to  cure  our  oc 
casional  hurts,  is  his  great  and  constant  office.  The 
bread  that  came  down  from  heaven,  the  well  of  water, 
the  light  of  the  world — these  are  his  most  appropriate 
symbols  ;  not  the  vinegar  and  the  gall,  which  he  drank 
that  we  might  be  spared  them  ;  not  the  nails  and  the 
spear,,  that  he  felt  that  we  might  not  feel  them  ! 

Nor  let  us,  in  our  sense  of  the  greatness  of  human 
nature,  forget  that  what  is  sometimes  said  to  disparage 
and  abase  it,  may  be  said,  with  equal  earnestness,  to 
exalt  and  honor  it ;  namely,  that  it  is  an  entire  depend 
ent  on  the  grace  of  God  ;  that  all  it  has  of  good,  or 
hopes  of  good,  or  can  do  of  good,  is  from  above,  and  in 
the  inspiration  and  strength  of  the  divine  mercy,  love, 


HUMAN    NATURE.  221 

and  assistance.  By  itself  it  is  indeed  most  weak,  im 
potent,  and  blind.  Leave  the"  eye,  and  strike  away  the 
sun  ;  the  ear,  and  destroy  the  vibrating  air  ;  the  pal 
ate,  and  .deny  it  food  ;  and  what  has  become  of  the 
glory  of  the  senses  ?  Or  imagine  the  earth,  with  all 
its  roots,  and  plants,  and  herbs,  waiting  for  spring  rains 
that  never  come,  and  a  tardy  sun  that  will  not  climb 
the  sky  ? 

Is  it  to  the  shame,  the  sorrow,  the  mortification  of 
human  nature,  that  it  needs  God's  presence,  blessing, 
support,  assistance,  to  give  it  strength,  wisdom,  and 
happiness  ?  Is  not  this  its  glory,  and  beauty,  and  joy? 
That  it  needs  God,  and  that  God  loves  its  need,  and 
will  supply  it  ?  I  insist,  with  the  fullest  conviction, 
that  our  nature  is  far  more  hopeful,  considered  in  its 
capacities,  than  in  its  faculties,  if  such  a  distinction 
may  be  allowed.  But  just  this  is  human  nature  :  its 
openness  to  God,  its  power  to  entertain  the  heavenly 
guest,  and  to  become  the  temple  and  residence  of  the 
Most  High. 

But  God's  coming,  in  and  by  his  Christ  or  his 
Spirit,  changes  human  nature,  as  the  rain  from  heaven 
changes  the  channels  of  the  brooks  and  rivers,  the  look 
of  the  trees  and  grasses.  It  creates,  by  developing  and 
completing.  The  ocean  out  of  the  bay,  leaves  us  an 
ugly  basin  of  flats  and  mud  ;  but  how  does  the  return 
ing  tide  beautify  the  place  ! 

It  becomes  us  to  remember,  however,  that  we  have 
power,  such  as  nature  does  not  possess,  to  resist  and 
shut  out  the  divine  influence  !  God  will  not  intrude. 
Christ  is  never  an  uninvited  guest.  The  heavenly  pow 
ers  respect  our  freedom,  and  it  is  essential  to  our  digni- 


222  THE   RE-ADJUSTMENT    OF   FAITH. 

ty,  as  moral  beings,  that  our  loyalty  should-  be  volun 
tary  and  our  obedience  professed.  This,  our  dignity,  is 
also  our  peril.  Glorious  as  our  nature  is,  it  is  fraught 
with  enormous  perils — none,  perhaps,  that  are*  fatal,  but 
many  of  terrible  significance  and  dreadfulness. 

Any  account  of  humanity  that  leaves  out  its  crimes, 
its  frightful  sorrows,  its  self-cruelties,  its  enormous  mis 
takes  and  capacities  for  evil  and  punishment,  is  a  false 
and  a  deluding,  a  partial  and  a  childish,  view  of  it. 
But  any  view  of  its  sorrows,  crimes,  and  sins,  which 
hides  its  glory,  denies  its  sacred  origin,  hinders  its  lib 
erty,  or  introduces  a  policy  of  discouragement  and  de 
spair,  is  infinitely  more  false,  puerile,  and  unjust. 

Keverence  your  nature  !  reverence  your  race  !  honor 
humanity  !  study  your  own  soul,  and  all  souls,  with 
tender  awe,  and  pity,  and  love  !  welcome  Christ  as 
your  example,  guide,  and  helper — your  food  and  your 
medicine  !  receive  the  Holy  Spirit  as  the  residue  of 
that  of  which  you  have  the  earnest  in  your  hearts  !  For 
God  comes  to  His  own  as  Christ  came  to  his  own  ;  and 
our  nature  is  equally  sacred  in  its  origin  and  its  consti 
tution,  in  its  need  and  supply  of  divine  grace,  its  law  of 
progress,  and  its  immortal  destiny  ! 

FEB.  14,  1858. 


SERMON  XIV. 

THE  ORIGIN  AND  QUALITY  OF  SIN. 

"  Have  they  stumbled,  that  they  should  fall  ?  God  forbid :  but  rather 
through  their  fall  salvation  is  come  unto  the  Gentiles,  for  to  provoke 
them  unto  jealousy.  Now,  if  the  fall  of  them  be  the  riches  of  the 
world,  and  the  diminishing  of  them  the  riches  of  the  Gentiles;  how 
much  more  their  fulness?  " — ROMANS  xi.  11,  12. 

THE  fall  or  unfaithfulness  of  the  Jews  was,  accord 
ing  to  these  words,  to  be  converted  by  God  into  the 
elevation  of  the  Gentiles  ;  and  their  fall  was  only  a 
stumble,  not  an  overthrow,  which  was  to  teach  even 
them,  in  future,  a  more  careful  walk.  I  do  not  quote 
this  passage,  which  many  other  texts  support,  but 
which  many  others  also  conflict  with,  as  decisive  of  the 
doctrine  which  I  am  about  to  lay  down — which  is  bet 
ter  argued  on  general  than  on  merely  scriptural  grounds 
— but  as  an  evidence  that  whatever  else  may  be  taught 
in  the  New  Testament  at  other  times,  the  doctrine  of 
moral  good  coming  out  of  moral  evil,  of  sin  being  over 
ruled  to  the  salvation  even  of  its  authors  and  victims, 
is  also  taught  there. 

In  addressing  you  in  my  last  discourse,  on  the  sub 
ject  of  human  nature,  its  constitution  and  worth,  I  pur 
posely  omitted  one  great  department  of  the  theme,  as 


224  THE    RE-ADJUSTMENT    OF    FAITH. 

being  too  important  for  any  but  a  separate  and  exclu 
sive  discussion — i.  e.,  the  origin,  nature,  and  effects  of 
sin.  I  showed  you  at  that  time,  that  human  nature 
was  divine  in  its  origin  and  constitution  ;  that  its  pow 
ers  and  faculties  were  all  good  ;  that  its  injurious  and 
unhappy  fruits  proceeded  from  the  abuse  of  attributes 
and  qualities  whose  use  was  lawful  and  beneficent ;  and 
that  the  errors,  follies,  and  wickedness  of  the  world, 
were  not  traceable  to  any  depravity  of  human  nature, 
which  is  God's  perfect  work,  but  to  the  ignorance,  wil- 
fulness,  and  folly  of  those  who  possess  this  nature,  with 
out  understanding  or  respecting  it. 

Now,  it  may  fairly  enough  be  asked,  whether  this 
wilfulness,  ignorance,  and  folly,  are  not  a  part  of  human 
nature  ;  and  how  the  contempt  and  reprobation  we  feel 
for  them  are  to  be  averted  from  human  nature  itself  ? 
If  we  confess  that  men  are  everywhere  weak,  erring, 
passionate,  sinful,  what  avails  it  to  say  that  their  na 
ture  is  not  so  ?  How  have  universal  laxity,  disobe 
dience  and  wrong,  crept  into  a  race,  whose  nature  is 
divine  and  pure  ;  made  for  goodness  and  happiness 
alone  ?  Does  a  sweet  fountain  well  out  bitter  waters, 
or  a  fig-tree  bring  forth  thorns  ?  Let  me  answer  with 
an  illustration. 

If  you  look  into  any  work  of  natural  history  for  an 
account  of  the  lion,  you  will  find  him  described  as  a 
powerful,  ferocious  animal,  capable  of  destroying  the 
most  fierce  and  dangerous  beasts  of  the  forest ;  his 
height  four  feet,  his  length  six  or  eight,  his  mane  shag 
gy  and  copious,  his  roar  deafening,  his  claws  of  enor 
mous  size,  sharpness,  and  power.  But  suppose  the 
hunter,  coming  upon  the  lion's  den,  in  the  absence  of 


THE    ORIGIN   AND    QUALITY    OF    SIN.  225 

the  dam,  finds  the  new-horn  whelps,  hunts  them  with 
his  hounds,  and  carries  them  home  as  his  trophies. 
They  are  young  lions  !  But  how  do  they  correspond 
with  the  naturalist's  description  ?  Yet  they  certainly 
have  the  nature  of  the  lion,  and  the  naturalist  has  de 
scribed  the  lion  truly.  It  is  evident  that  the  naturalist 
would  have  done  no  justice  to  the  lion's  nature,  if  he 
had  given  the  whelp  as  a  sample  of  it. 

Does  it  not  at  once  come  home  to  us,  that  the  na 
ture  of  a  thing  is  described  only  when  the  perfection  of 
which  it  is  capable,  and  to  which  it  ultimately  attains, 
is  depicted  ;  that  the  whelp  is  not  the  lion  ;  that  the 
oaken  sapling  is  not  the  oak  ;  that  the  infant  is  not  the 
man  ;  that  the  growing,  undeveloped,  unregulated  hu 
man  creature,  is  not  the  representative  of  human  na 
ture  ? 

All  lions  do  not  come  to  their  majestic  growth ; 
all  oaks  are  not  spreading  and  long-lived  ;  but  this 
does  not  make  the  lion  less  than  the  king  of  beasts,  the 
oak  less  than  the  monarch  of  the  woods.  It  may,  how 
ever,  properly  be  asked,  whether,  if  only  here  and  there  a 
lion,  or  an  oak  were  found  of  noble  proportions,  we  should 
still  hold  on  to  our  lofty  description  of  these  products. 
I  answer,  perhaps  not  ;  for  the  ordinary  and  permanent 
circumstances  in  which  things  are  placed,  must  be  ac 
cepted  as  a  part  of  their  description  or  nature. 

If  an  orange-tree  in  a  glass-house  were  capable  of 
being  grown  to  the  size  of  an  oak,  we  should  not  call 
this  forced  and  unnatural  product  a  representative  of 
the  nature  of  the  orange-tree.  But  in  truth  such  arti 
ficial  circumstances  are  not  capable  of  producing  the 
perfection  of  any  fruit. 
10* 


226  THE    RE-ADJUSTMENT    OF    FAITH. 

It  must  be  conceded,  then,  that  humaii  nature  is 
not  to  be  contemplated  independently  of  human  cir 
cumstances  ;  that  what  men  ordinarily  come  to,  has  a 
proper  place  in  our  estimate  of  their  nature  ;  that  we 
have  no  right  to  select  a  few  specimens  of  great  men 
and  exalted  characters,  and  present  them  as  the  repre 
sentatives  of  our  common  nature. 

It  must,  however,  on  the  other  hand,  be  remember 
ed  that  unlike  the  lion  or  the  oak,  man  does  not,  in 
any  case,  according  to  Scripture  teachings  and  our  ad 
mitted  theory,  attain  his  growth  in  this  world  ;  that 
his  whole  terrestrial  existence,  if  we  seriously  and 
thoughtfully  accept  the  doctrine  of  his  immortality,  is 
an  inconceivably  small  part  of  his  complete  life,  com 
paring  with  his  endless  existence  in  a  ratio  infinitely 
less  than  his  earthly  infancy  compares  with  his  earthly 
manhood.  If  it  be  his  nature  to  live  forever,  his  na 
ture  can  show  itself  only  in  its  rudimentary  forms  in 
his  brief  lifetime.  All  that  we  can  fitly  demand  of 
his  nature,  to  constitute  a  claim  for  it  on  our  respect 
and  awe,  is  that  it  should  exhibit  a  design  and  plan, 
with  original  faculties  and  dispositions  corresponding  to 
it,  of  a  divine  beauty,  skill  and  excellence  ;  that  we 
should  see  a  general  tendency  in  his  providential  cir 
cumstances  to  develop  this  plan  ;  that  the  failures  in  it 
should  be  explicable  on  principles  not  inconsistent  with 
its  alleged  worth,  or  the  divine  love  for  it  ;  and  that  the 
general  idea  of  humanity,  with  all  its  errors,  weaknesses 
and  follies,  left  upon  the  honest,  thoughtful  student  of 
his  nature,  should  be  that  of  reverence,  tenderness, 
hope  and  sympathy.  Such  a  position  we  claim  for  it. 

If  the  errors,  sins,  follies,  mistakes    of  humanity 


THE    OKIGIN   AND    QUALITY    OF    SIN.  227 

are  such  as  were  to  have  been  expected  from  the  infancy 
of  an  immortal  creature,  made  in  the  image  of  God  ; 
if  they  have  a  tendency  to  correct  themselves  ;  if  they 
diminish  as  the  race  grows  older  ;  if  the  providence  of 
God,  natural  and  supernatural,  is  successfully  directed 
to  the  education,  and  adapted,  by  ever  improving  me 
thods,  to  the  theory  of  his  gradual  and  progressive 
emancipation  ;  then  there  is  nothing  in  the  admitted 
blunders,  failures  or  sins  of  the  race,  to  discourage  our 
hopes  of  it,  or  abate  our  respect  for  its  design.  If  it  is 
of  the  nature  of  humanity  to  grow,  and  to  grow  in 
alternate  moral  sunshine  and  storm  ;  to  grow  amid 
winds  that  sometimes  uproot  it,  or  break  its  boughs, 
but  oftener  under  rains  that  feed  its  roots  and  skies 
that  warm  its  sap — then  we  must  not  adduce  its  ruin 
ed  specimens,  or  its  bruised  and  battered  branches,  as 
evidences  of  its  worthlessness  or  of  the  divine  indigna 
tion,  but  acknowledge  that  its  general  trials  and  ob 
stacles,  and  even  individual  overthrows,  are  not  incon 
sistent  with  its  characteristic  success.  Man  advances, 
though  men  fall.  The  army  conquers,  though  many 
dead  are  left  on  the  field.  The  campaign  is  glorious, 
though  this  skirmish  was  unfortunate  ;  that  company 
defeated  ;  and  many  promising  officers  were  lost  in  the 
war.  Its  object  was  gained  ;  its  flag  waved  in  triumph 
over  the  capitol  and  citadel  of  its  foe. 

Few,  I  suppose,  will  be  disposed  to  deny,  that,  since 
Adam  left  Paradise,  humanity  has  ever  been,  and  con 
tinues  in,  an  educational  and  progressive  state,  or  that 
such  a  state  has  been  recognized  and  responded  to  by 
God's  Providence  !  How  else  can  we  account  for  the 
slow  supplantation  of  less  bymoreelevatedcodes  of  moral- 


--S  THE    RE-ADJUSTMENT    OF    FAITH. 

ity  and  religion,  in  the  successive  dispensations,  Noachic, 
Abrahamio,  Mosaic  and  Christian  ?  God  recognizes, 
that  is,  expects  and  provides  for,  progress.  In  other 
words,  he  does  not  demand  of  humanity  to  produce  its 
perfect  fruits  at  its  planting.  It  is  a  slow  growth,  and 
requires  a  different  kind  of  culture  at  different  stages  ; 
now  transplantation,  then  pruning  ;  here  rain  ;  there 
sunshine  ;  its  shoots  precede  its  blossoms  ;  its  blos 
soms  its  fruit  ;  "  first  the  blade,  then  the  ear,  then 
the  full  corn  in  the  ear. " 

But,  according  to  popular  theories,  all   this  pro 
gress  has  been  made  necessary  by  an  unexpected  falling 
away  from  perfection  in  our  first  ancestor.     Had  he  not 
sinned,   our  race  would    have    continued    perfect   and 
happy  without  the  necessity  for  progress,  or  the  ueeii 
of  any  of  those  educational  and  recuperative  processes 
to  which  Providence  has  resorted.     Let  those  who  can, 
believe  this  !     Let  those  also  who  can,  call  the  nti- 
fallen  Adam  and  Eve,  satisfactory  patterns  and  types 
of  our  complete  humanity  !     Imagine  a  world  of  Adams 
and  Eves,  living  in  a  garden,  on  spontaneous  fruits, 
ignorant  of  the  distinction  between  good  and  evil,  and 
without  any  capacity  of  moral  change  or  improvement ! 
Can  any  amount  of  credulity  enable  an  enlightened 
and  candid  mind  of  the  present  day  to  think  this  world 
originally  made  to  be  occupied  by  such  a  race  ;  that 
unfallen  Adams  and  Eves  could  ever  have  developed 
its   resources,  or  their  own  powers  and  capacities  of 
moral  and  spiritual  happiness  ?     Can  any  subtlety  per 
ceive  a  true   distinction  between  their  condition  and 
that  of  the  innocent  but  feeble  islanders  of  some  fe\v 
in  the  Pacific  ?     Can  any  degree  of  superstition 


THE    ORIGIN    AND    QUALITY    OF    SIN.  229 

regard  a  state  of  unfallen  holiness,  which  allowed  our 
first  parents  to  succumb  in  the  midst  of  perfect  bliss, 
and  under  God's  own  direct  care,  and  instructions,  be 
fore  the  first  temptation,  as  superior  to  our  present 
moral  condition  ? 

If  Adam  fell,  the  race  rose  by  his  fall  ;  he  fell  up, 
and  nothing  happier  for  our  final  fortunes  ever  occurred 
than  when  the  innocents  of  the  garden  learned  their 
shame,  and  fled  into  the  hardships  and  experiences  of  • 
a  disciplinary  and  growing  humanity.  Nor  think  mo 
bold  in  saying  as  much  as  this  ;  for  the  whole  Chris 
tian  scheme  proceeds  upon  the  popular  hypothesis 
that  "  sin  abounded,  that  grace  might  more  abound." 
Would  the  Church  consent  to  give  up  its  Christ,  to  re 
gain  its  unfallen  Adam?  But  for  the  fallen  Adam, 
according  to  its  theory,  we  could  not  have  had  the 
risen  Christ.  As  our  text  says  of  the  Jews,  it  may 
be  said  also  of  our  lirst  parents — "  Have  they  stumbled 
that  they  should  fall  ?  God  forbid  ;  but  rather  through 
their  fall,  salvation  is  come  unto  the^Gentiles."  Has 
not  God  himself  then  made  Adam's  fall  a  blessing  to 
the  race  ?  and  if  so,  why  do  we  inconsistently  continue 
to  call  it  a  curse  ?  The  truth  is,  God's  curses  are  only 
blessings  in  disguise,  and  his  punishments,  the  strokes 
of  his  mercy  and  love. 

The  radical  vice  of  the  popular  way  of  thinking 
about  moral  evil,  lies  in  the  supposition  that  God  did 
not  originally  design  or  anticipate  our  earthly  experi 
ences  as  a  race  ;  that  Adam  and  Eve's  condition  was 
one  of  possible  and  desirable  continuance  ;  that  a  state 
of  spotless  innocency  is  better  than  a  state  of  moral 
exposure  and  moral  struggle  ;  and  that  all  our  hu- 


230  THE      RE-ADJUSTMENT    OF    FAITH. 

inanity  is  not  entitled  to  use,  development  and  playj 
in  its  grand  career  of  being.  On  the  other  hand,  the 
true  theory  of  humanity  presents  us  with  a  race  brought 
into  this  world  for  its  education,  starting  with  moral 
and  intellectual  infancy,  and  liable  to  all  the  mistakes, 
weaknesses  and  follies,  which  an  ungrown  and  inex 
perienced  nature  begets. 

But  this  is  evidently  not  a  full  account  of  the  origin 
•  and  nature  of  what  we  call  sin,  though  it  might  be  of 
evil.  If  we  stopped  here,  we  should  certainly  leave 
some  of  the  most  characteristic  experiences,  and  most 
universal  and  profound  instincts  of  our  nature  and  life, 
entirely  unexplained. 

If  all  the  evil  in  the  world  is  the  result  of  inexpe 
rience,  mistake,  youthful  blundering  and  weakness,' 
whence  arises  the  general  sense  of  the  difference  be 
tween  faults  and  misfortunes,  the  right  and  the  expe 
dient,  the  mistaken  and  the  criminal  ?  How  shall  we 
account  for  the  phenomena  of  conscience,  its  approving 
and  disapproving  voice,  its  remorse,  its  apprehensions  ? 
If  sin  be  only  weakness,  error,  mistake,  inexperience, 
it  can  hardly  be  regarded  as  voluntary,  or  wilful,  as 
worthy  of  blame,  or  of  punishment ;  and  the  universal 
consciousness  of  wrong  and  unworthiness  would  be 
proved  to  be  a  gigantic  delusion,  and  an  enormous 
superstition. 

Now,  an  answer  to  this  objection  is  found  in  the 
statement  that  our  condition,  as  a  race,  is  that  of  the 
education  and  development  of  moral  beings  ;  and  that 
moral  beings  are — by  the  very  force  of  the  term  moral 
— free,  accountable,  responsible,  and  therefore  liable  to 
become  sinful.  The  difference  between  sins  and  mis- 


THE    ORIGIN    AND    QUALITY    OF    SIN.  231 

takes  is,  that  a  voluntary  or  moral  element  enters  into 
that  transgression  of  the  law,  which  is  properly  styled 
a  sin  ;  while  a  mistake  has  no  such  quality. 

But  why  should  this  element  of  free  will,  this  moral 
power,  which  distinguishes  us  from  the  beasts,  be  so 
solemn  and  awful  a  faculty  ?  The  beasts  have  will, 
and  some  measure  of  freedom,  but  they  have  no  moral 
nature.  What  is  it  that  constitutes  a  moral  nature  ? 
This  question  throws  us  back  upon  the  nature  of  God, 
who  is  a  moral  being.  And  his  morality  lies  in  his  love 
and  unswerving  practice  of  justice,  truth,  goodness. 
These  qualities  are  not  merely  expedient,  productive 
of  happiness,  in  accordance  with  law  ;  but  they  are  in 
trinsically  sacred,  holy,  lovely  and  awful,  and  they  con- 
.stitute  the  glory,  sanctity,  and  blessedness  of  the  divine 
nature.  Man's  moral  nature  consists  in  his  constitu 
tional  power  to  perceive  these  attributes  of  right,  of 
goodness,  of  sanctity  in  God,  and  to  recognize  their 
authority  over  his  own  soul  and  life.  He  approves 
himself  when  he  obeys  this  authority.  He  disapproves 
himself  when  he  disobeys  it ;  and  this  is  what  he  means 
by,  and  feels  as,  sin.  It  is  not  merely  a  mistake  to  do 
that  which  is  contrary  to  justice,  truth,  and  goodness — 
a  weakness,  an  impolitic  and  unwise  step  ;  it  is  a  sin, 
a  cause  for  self-reproach,  remorse,  repentance.  It  is 
not  that  one's  happiness  is  impaired,  but  one's  being 
wronged,  and  God's  holiness  insulted  or  grieved.  For 
a  moral  nature  makes  its  owner  a  partner  in  all  other 
moral  natures,  and  gives  him  an  awful  power  to  involve 
other  moral  natures  by  his  offences.  In  wronging  his 
own  soul,  he  wrongs  universal  justice,  truth,  and  good 
ness  ;  just  as  a  social  nature  gives  its  possessor  a  part- 


232  THE    RE-ADJUSTMENT    OF    FAITH. 

nership  in  all  society,  and  enables  him  to  wrong  society 
in  general,  by  his  offences  against  order  and  law.  Thus 
the  possessor  of  a  moral  nature  has  an  enormous  and 
glorious  responsibility,  and  one  attended  with  the 
gravest  perils,  as  well  as  the  most  exalted  privileges  ! 
Mistakes,  blunders,  errors,  may  be  repaired,  but  sins 
have  a  quality  of  irreparableness  about  them,  which 
gives  a  certain  awful  and  infinite  quality  to  wrong. 
You  can  repent  of  sin  ;  you  can  repair  your  wrong  as 
far  as  others  have  directly  suffered  by  it  ;  but  how  can 
you  heal  the  wound  your  sin  has  made  in  the  principle 
of  justice — how  prevent  your  disobedience  from  en 
couraging  rebellion,  and  infecting  other  moral  natures 
as  weak  as  your  own  ?  It  is  the  profound  sense  of 
this  awful  element  in  sin  which  has  led  to  the  extrava 
gant  notion  that  Adam's  sin  shook  the  throne  of  God, 
was  punished  with  the  curse  of  death  upon  the  race, 
and  only  repaired  by  the  sacrifice  of  Christ — God's 
other  self — upon  the  cross  ! 

But  surely,  to  keep  up  an  honest  and  profitable 
view  of  the  enormous  evil  and  hatefulness  of  sin,  we  are 
not  to  rush  into  absurdities  like  this  !  There  is  evi 
dently  in  the  divine  mind  one  thing  worse  than  sin, 
and  that  is  the  absence  of  all  opportunities  of  moral 
life  and  spiritual  goodness.  God  proves  to  us,  by  his 
having,  in  full  foreknowledge  of  its  history,  created  our 
race,  that  he  loves  life  more  than  he  hates  death,  loves 
virtue  and  holiness  more  than  he  hates  vice  and  un 
righteousness  ;  that  is  to  say,  that  for  the  sake  of  pro 
ducing  a  race  capable  of  knowing,  loving,  and  serving 
him,  and  which  should  be  put  under  circumstances  ul 
timately  leading  to  that  result,  he  would  endure  the 


THE    OKIGIN    AND    QUALITY    OF    SIN.  233 

moral  evil,  the  sin,  which  their  moral  education  would 
certainly  involve.  How  easy  had  it  been  for  infinite 
power  to  abstain  from  creating  moral  beings,  and  thus 
avoid  the  possibility  of  sin  in  his  universe  !  But  the 
whole  order  of  nature  shows  that  the  production  of 
good  is  a  more  fundamental  principle  with  God  than 
the  suppression  of  evil ;  that  to  make  much  happiness 
he  will — be  it  spoken  reverently — risk  some  unhappi- 
ness  ;  much  good,  some  evil ;  much  virtue,  some  vice. 
There  is  no  moral  allowance  for  wrong  in  God's  uni 
verse,  no  sympathy  with  evil,  no  countenance  for  sin. 
God  is  never  the  author  of  either  ;  but  he  permits 
wrong,  evil  and  sin,  so  far  as  they  grow  out  of  the  exi 
gencies  of  moral  beings,  and  doubtless  considers  them 
as  spots  upon  the  sun,  when  compared  with  the  free 
dom,  aspiration,  tendencies  to  truth  and  virtue,  which 
his  providential  care  is  gradually  preparing  for  our  race. 
It  is  not,  then,  that  sin  has  been  too  seriously,  but  only 
too  exclusively,  regarded  by  theologians  ;  not  that  its 
nature  has  been  too  darkly  painted,  but  that  man's 
brighter  characteristics,  his  cheering  manifestations, 
the  general  bent  of  his  moral  powers  and  affections, 
have  not  been  enough  considered  in  connection  with  it 
— that  a  negative  instead  of  a  positive  view  has  pre 
vailed,  in  which  the  difficulty  of  sin,  instead  of  the 
problem  of  moral  being,  has  been  made  the  whole  hinge 
of  morality,  religion,  and  human  destiny.  Man's  na 
ture  and  existence,  as  a  child  of  God,  a  moral  and  in 
tellectual  being,  receiving  his  education  here,  is  the 
primary  fact,  to  which  the  other  fact,  that  he  has 
sinned,  is  subsidiary,  and  of  secondary  importance.  A 
true  view  of  God's  plan  and  man's  destiny  must  date 


234  THE    RE-ADJUSTMENT    OF    FAITH. 

from  man's  nature,  not  Adam's  sin  ;  from  God's  love, 
not  man's  weakness  ;  from  all  the  facts  of  human  ex 
perience,  not  from  a  single  fact.  The  world  has  been 
too  long  and  too  horribly  darkened  by  the  monstrously 
magnified  shadow  of  the  first  sin.  It  has  hid  God's 
love,  it  has  blighted  humanity,  it  has  made  religion  a 
bugbear  and  a  superstition. 

We  shall  understand  the  nature  of  sin,  and  the 
operation  of  conscience,  better,  if  we  keep  in  mind  one 
other  fact.  Eight  and  wrong  are  not  relative,  but  ab 
solute  terms,  answering  to  eternal  distinctions  in  the 
divine  character  and  nature.  Our  knowledge  of  right 
and  wrong,  on  the  other  hand,  is  not  entirety,  perhaps 
not  prevailingly,  intuitive,  but  a  result  of  educated  at 
tention,  experience,  and  illumination  from  revelation 
and  life.  We  have  some  instinctive  sense  of  absolute 
right  and  wrong,  but  our  nature  is  even  more  distin 
guished  for  its  power  to  grow  up  into  an  ever  higher 
and  more  complete  knowledge  of  right  and  wrong. 
Now,  it  is  evident  that,  with  this  condition  of  moral 
growth,  there  is  involved  an  experience  of  moral  weak 
ness  and  error,  which  is  not  sin,  but  which  is  alienation 
from  the  law  of  God.  Paul,  before  his  illumination  on 
the  way  to  Damascus,  "  verily  thought  it  right  to  do 
many  things  contrary  to  the  name  of  Jesus  of  Naza 
reth."  Was  it  right  in  itself  ?  No.  Was  it  right  for 
him  ?  Yes  !  but  not  safe.  And  consequently,  when 
he  got  his  moral  and  spiritual  eyes  open,  he  condemned 
himself  seriously.  This  retrospective  power  of  con 
science  is  constantly  confounded  with  its  directing  and 
guiding  power.  We  may  and  must  justly  lament  and 
sorrow  for  sins  which  have  only  become  sins  long  after 


THE    ORIGIN   AND    QUALITY    OF    SIN.  235 

they  were  committed  as  errors,  mistakes,  and  "blunders. 
For  it  is  an  inevitable  part  of  our  progress,  as  moral 
beings,  to  apply  the  highest  light  we  possess  to  the 
judgment  of  what  is  past,  as  well  as  to  what  is  imme 
diate.  And  this  immaturity,  infancy,  and  weakness  of 
the  moral  nature,  which  temporarily  allows  so  much 
that  a  better  conscience  afterwards  shows  to  be  sin, 
theologians  have  ventured  to  call  our  wicked  heart, 
our  depraved  nature,  our  hereditary  sinfulness.  But 
what  would  be  a  pure  heart,  a  regenerate  nature,  a  na 
tive  holiness  ?  Would  they  have  men  born  with  per 
fect  moral  illumination,  with  complete  and  absolute  views 
of  duty,  with  all  the  nicety  of  conscience  and  wisdom 
of  heart,  which,  at  present,  long  discipline  under  the 
Gospel  alone  communicates  ?  But  would  not  this  re 
quire  an  equal  perfection  and  adultness  of  intellect  and 
experience  ?  In  short,  is  not  the  demand  this  :  that 
moral  beings  ought  not  to  be  put  into  this  world  at  all 
for  education  or  discipline,  but  only  for  enjoyment  of 
their  already  perfected  state  ?  But  this  experiment 
was  tried,  according  to  the  prevailing  theory,  in  the 
original  Paradise,  with  Adam  and  Eve  !  Was  the 
success  such  as  to  make  us  desirous  of  its  repetition  ? 

To  the  retrospective  action  of  conscience,  which, 
without  any  dishonor  to  human  nature,  or  even  to 
human  character,  accounts  largely  for  the  sense  of  sin, 
we  must  add,  as  an  equal  cause,  the  prospective  action 
of  conscience.  As  the  memory  of  our  moral  mistakes 
is  converted  into  remorse  when  our  ignorance  passes 
away,  so  the  pursuit  of  a  moral  ideal  afflicts  the  soul 
with  pangs  of  guilt,  in  view  of  an  obedience  it  emulates, 
but  is  not  now  able  to  pay.  This  self-dissatisfaction  is 


236  THE    RE-ADJUSTMENT    OF    FAITH. 


the  condition  of  progress — is  an  inevitable  attendant  on 
humanity,  and  must  not  be  confounded  with  the  frown 
of  God,  or  the  reproach  of  a  sinful  nature.  Christ  him 
self  recoiled  from  the  ascription  of  good,  in  his  own 
humble  consciousness  of  heights  of  excellence  yet  to 
be  won. 

According  to  the  view  now  presented,  sin,  though 
not  the  great  fact  in  the  universe,  overshadowing  the 
glory  of  our  nature  and  the  power  and  love  of  God3  is 
no  light  thing,  nay,  is  no  negative  thing — like  the  lost 
lessons,  misused  opportunities  and  unimproved  talents 
of  our  school-days — leaving  a  mere  vacancy  in  our  edu 
cation.  It  is  rather  like  the  bad  habits,  wrong  tastes 
and  depraved  dispositions,  which  self-indulgence,  diso 
bedience  and  folly  in  our  youth,  fasten  upon  the  soul, 
and  give  a  fixed  root  there.  It  is  positive  and  self-prop 
agating.  Sin  is  a  different  thing  from  sins,  as  the  bitter 
fruit  of  a  corrupt  tree,  is  a  different  thing  from  the  tree 
itself.  A  criminal,  or  vicious  disposition,  a  wicked 
heart,  in  short,  is  a  positive  thing,  with  a  tendency  by 
its  own  action  to  become  worse.  Because  our  nature  is 
made  for  virtue  and  goodness,  it  does  not  follow  that  it 
may  not  be  corrupted  even  in  its  very  springs.  You 
may  poison  a  well — you  may  poison  a  human  soul. 
Nay,  it  may  poison  itself ;  and  thus,  that  which  God 
made  for  purity,  peace  and  joy,  be  converted  into  a  curse 
to  its  possessor  and  the  world. 

Let  us  not  flatter  ourselves  that  there  is  not  a  great 
deal  of  wickedness  and  depravity,  of  absolute  and  posi 
tive  sin,  in  the  world.  A  true  theory  of  the  dignity, 
glory,  and  divine  perfection,  of  human  nature,  demands 
no  such  assumption.  The  liability  of  our  nature  to 


THE    ORIGIN    AND    QUALITY    OF    SIN.  237 

corruption  in  our  own  hands,,  and  to  injury  from 
our  companions  and  friends,  is  a  part  of  its  deli 
cacy,  its  wondrous  sensibility,  sympathetic  power  and 
moral  freedom.  Its  exposure  is  incidental  to  its 
extraordinary  and  perfect  constitution.  We  may  ac 
count  it  a  perilous  thing  to  have  such  a  nature  ;  nay, 
we  may  find  this  call  to  moral  »and  intellectual  life,  a 
summons  which  we  shudder  to  answer.  But  we  have 
no  choice.  God  made  us  for  his  own  glory  and  service, 
and  we  must  accept  our  arduous,  imperilled  and  glori 
ous  post  as  moral  beings,  with  submission  and  gratitude. 
Positively  considered,  sin  may  be  no  less  an  evil,  wick 
edness  no  less  common  a  fact,  the  perversity  of  human 
beings  and  their  depraving  influence  over  each  other,  no 
smaller,  than  the  Westminster  Catechism  in  its  darkest 
passages  represents  ;  but  Calvinism,  can  give  no  account 
of  the  origin,  nature  and  cure  of  sin,  wrhich  is  not  shock 
ing  to  the  heart,  conscience  and  hope.  It  makes  sin  as 
desperate,  final,  and  overwhelming  an  evil  in  the  sight 
of  God,  as  it  is  terrible,  trying,  and  hazardous  to  us.  It 
involves  the  universe  in  this  earth-born  snarl.  It  ties 
up  God's  hands  and  heaven's  gate  with  our  disordered 
heart-strings.  It  blots  out  the  spiritual  sun  with  this 
terrestrial  cloud.  Sin,  and  sin  only,  possesses  the  hu 
man  heart,  and  all  its  natural  motions  are  sinful !  Its 
affections,  its  thoughts,  its  purposes,  before  they  know 
themselves,  are  sinful  and  only  sinful.  We  are  alto 
gether  born  in  sin— and  life  is  a  mere  ocean  of  deprav 
ity,  in  which,  with  mill-stones  already  tied  round  our 
necks,  we  swim,  with  a  bare  chance,  by  desperate  exer 
tions,  of  loosening  the  cord  and  escaping  to  the  life 
boat,  that  picks  up  here  and  there  a  fortunate  or  elected 
soul. 


238  THE    RE-ADJUSTMENT    OF    FAITH. 

Against  this  blasting,  discouraging,  depraving  view 
of  sin,  and  of  God  its  author,  and  Christ  its  victim,  we 
place  our  own  view  of  it,  as  being  equally  solemn,  se 
rious,  earnest,  and  a  thousand  times  more  rational, 
scriptural  ancfc  credible — as  fitted  to  warn  and  en 
courage  ;  to  make  sin  hateful  and  leave  God  lovely, 
man's  wickedness  dreaded  and  dreadful,  while  his  na 
ture  is  conceded  to  be  divine  and  beautiful,  and  Christ's 
mission  one  of  universal  mercy  and  helpfulness,  instead 
of  being  a  proclamation  of  blessedness  to  a  few  and  of 
despair  to  the  mass  of  our  race. 

With  our  theory  of  life  as  a  vast  educational  scheme 
and  system,  in  which  God  uses  for  great  ends,  great 
risks  and  exposures,  with  plans  extending  indefinitely 
into  the  future  ;  and  which,  without  the  least  abuse  of 
human  freedom,  or  the  smallest  departure  from  a  moral 
ground,  his  Infinite  Providence  is  slowly  shaping  to  the 
possible  recovery  of  all  his  offspring,  and  the  possible 
salvation  of  all  men  in  some  ulterior  state  of  being — we 
can  afford  to  look  sin  distinctly  in  the  face  ;  to  acknowl 
edge  all  its  baseness,  blackness  and  ruin  ;  to  feel  our 
own  accountability  for  it,  and  to  own  that  its  nature  and 
fruits  are  evil  only.  We  are  not  driven  artfully  to  evade 
our  responsibility — either  by  laying  its  origin  to  the  first 
Adam,  or  shifting  off  its  consequences  upon  the  second. 
Calvinism,  despite  its  rigid  aspect,  is  a  terribly  lax  sys 
tem  of  theology  in  practice.  It  weakens  the  native 
conscience  by  its  horrid  metaphysics  touching  the  origin 
of  sin,  and  completes  its  perversion  by  its  unnatural 
philosophy  touching  the  cure  of  it.  How  comfortable 
to  lay  off  our  moral  obligations  upon  a  depraved  na 
ture,  and  shift  the  burden  of  self-heed  on  to  an  infinite 


THE    ORIGIN    AND    QUALITY    OF    SIN.  239 

atonement  !  What  has  this  doctrine  led  to,  but  a  prac 
tical  Universalism  of  the  coarsest  kind — not  that  which 
bravely  takes  the  name — but  that  which  is  seen  in  the 
ordinary  confidence  which  every  one  feels  about  the  se 
curity  and  immediate  salvation  of  his  own  kindred, 
family  and  friends  ?  The  popular  theology  diminishes 
the  sanctions  of  the  moral  law.  It  is  an  infinitely 
easier,  more  popular  and  conscience-soothing  system 
than  our  own,  because  it  puts  justice  and  mercy  at 
war  with  each  other,  God  and  Christ  on  different  sides, 
and  encourages  the  soul  to  think  duty  a  hardship,  law 
a  curse,  virtue  an  impossibility,  and  salvation  an  adroit 
evasion.  What  does  the  world  need  so  much  as  to  re 
turn  to,  or  rather  to  go  on  towards,  a  faith,  which  pro 
nounces  law  holy,  just  and  merciful ;  human  nature, 
sacred  and  perfect  in  design  ;  our  earthly  condition 
wondrously  and  thoroughly  adapted  to  our  development 
as  moral  beings  ;  sin,  a  personal  matter,  lying  at  every 
man's  own  door,  and  to  be  escaped  only  by  repentance 
and  reformation — and  then  not  without  scars  and  penal 
ties  inherent  in  every  offence. 

The  almost  universal  account  of  life  as  a  probationary 
state,  is  a  false  and  narrow  account  of  it,  if  it  means 
any  thing  more,  than  that  every  preceding  state  is  pro 
bationary  to  that  which  follows  it.  To  moral  beings  of 
immortal  destinies,  every  stage  of  existence  involves 
more  or  less,  and  for  good  and  evil,  that  which  succeeds 
it.  And  thus  the  life  that  now  is,  is  probationary  to  that 
which  is  to  come  ;  as  youth  is  to  manhood,  and  man 
hood  to  old  age.  But  the  truer  term  for  it  is  a  disciplin 
ary  and  educational  state — in  tlio  result  of  which  all 
abused,  neglected  or  perverted  talents  and  opportuni- 


240  THE    RE-ADJUSTMENT    OF    FAITH.  ' 

ties,  will  give  a  retributive  account  of  themselves  at 
the  bar  of  God,  which  is  the  eternal  law  of  our  moral 
constitution. 

Compare  this  account  of  sin  with  the  more  popular 
one,  and  decide  honestly,  with  Bible  in  hand,  conscience 
in  lively  action,  experience  and  observation  all  broadly 
rendering  in  their  testimony — which  is  most  worthy  of 
God's  character,  of  Christ's  Gospel,  of  man's  soul  ? 
which  is  most  candid,  credible,  true,  affecting,  and  able 
to  bear  the  light  of  futurity  ? 

MAY  23,  1857. 


SERMON  XV. 

HUMAN  NATURE— ITS  EXPOSURE  TO  SIN. 

"  I  am  the  Lord,  and  there  is  none  else.  I  form  the  light  and  create  dark 
ness.  I  make  peace,  and  create  evil.  I  the  Lord,  do  all  these  things." 
— ISAIAH  xlv.  6,  7. 

THE  prophets  and  apostles  were  much  bolder  in  their 
assertions  than  their  degenerate  followers  dare  to  be. 
The  evil  that  is  in  the  world  they  ascribe,  without  hesi 
tation,  not  to  the  perversion  which  the  divine  order  has 
received  from  man,  but  to  the  position  and  direct  crea 
tion  of  God,  whom  they  represent,  in  the  text,  as  say 
ing,  "  I  make  peace,  and  create  evil."  An  honorable 
unwillingness  to  conceive  of  God,  as  creating  evil,  has 
vitiated  very  much  all  the  discussions  touching  the  ori 
gin  of  evil,  whether  in  nature  or  in  humanity  ;  and  is  at 
the  bottom  of  the  abiding  antagonism  between  the  as- 
sertors  of  the  original  rectitude  and  perfection  of  human 
nature,  and  the  assertors  of  a  universal  corruption  and 
total  depravity.  That  God  may  create  evil,  and  yet  be  a 
perfectly  good  and  holy  Being,  may  possibly  appear  less 
self-contradictory,  after  considering  anew  the  original 
constitution  of  our  nature,  and  the  nature  and  rise  of 
sin  in  a  being  created  by  omnipotent  wisdom  and  good- 
11 


242  THE    RE-ADJUSTMENT    OF    FAITH. 

ness.    Full  satisfaction  is  not  to  be  had  on  this  subject  ] 
but  some  relief  may  be  secured  from  its  perplexities. 

There  is  a  permanent  dispute  in  the  world  and  the 
Church  respecting  human  nature,  some  affirming  it  to 
be  constitutionally  and  originally  good  and  well-dis 
posed  ;  others,  naturally  evil  and  ill-disposed.  It  is 
really,  I  suppose,  mainly  a  dispute  about  words  ;  that 
is,  the  parties  to  it  are  not  talking  about  the  same  thing. 
One  side  looks  at  man,  as  a  mass  of  materials  and  with 
reference  to  the  design  of  his  Creator,  and  finding  noth 
ing  in  his  appetites,  passions,  or  total  faculties,  which  is 
not  adapted  to  the  ultimate  perfection  of  the  plan — 
nothing  which  it  could  desire  to  get  rid  of,  or  to  change, 
it  pronounces  human  nature  sound,  good,  and  every  way 
approvable.  The  other  side  looks  at  man,  with  refer 
ence  to  his  present  order  and  completeness — as  a  crea 
ture  to  be  judged  of  in  his  actual  state — and  seeing  the 
manifest  deficiencies,  the  great  confusion,  the  total  un- 
satisfactoriness  of  this  being,  when  compared  with  a 
perfect  standard,  it  pronounces  human  nature  corrupt, 
depraved,  fallen.  It  is  as  if  two  travellers  of  intelli 
gence,  learning  and  elevated  sentiment,  had  at  the  same 
moment  arrived  from  different  foreign  countries,  at  a 
place  where  a  proposed  temple,  of  such  splendor  as  to 
arouse  the  curiosity  of  the  whole  world,  was  in  process 
of  building.  They,  of  course,  find  the  ground  strewn 
with  materials  in  utter  confusion,  the  plan  of  the  archi 
tect  only  just  emerging  from  heaps  of  stone  and  mor 
tar,  columns  and  slabs — while  dust,  dirt  and  disor 
der  everywhere  prevail.  Both  acquaint  themselves  with 
the  general  design,  and  admire  it  equally.  But  the  at 
tention  of  one  is,  by  constitution,  habit  or  theory,  fas- 


HUMAN    NATURE.  243 

tened  upon  the  disorder  ;  the  contrast  between  the  plan 
and  the  present  condition  of  the  works ;  the  slowness  of 
the  progress,  the  want  of  a  satisfactory  concert  among 
the  workmen,  the  disproportioned  way  in  which  the 
building  rises — two  stories  finished  in  one  part,  before 
the  foundations  are  fairly  laid  in  another  part  ;  orna 
mentation  done  here,  while  use  is  neglected  there — evi 
dent  waste,  and  fraud,  and  jobbing,  revealing  themselves 
to  him  in  the  contractors  and  workmen.  The  attention 
of  the  other,  on  the  contrary,  is,  by  constitution,  habit 
*id  theory,fastcned  upon  the  wonderful  fitness  of  the  ma 
terials  collected,  their  vast  amount  and  excellence,  and 
the  admirable  result  to  which  their  arrangement  is  tend 
ing.  In  his  imaginative  eye,  he  sees  the  parts  and  pieces 
already  in  their  places  ;  he  wonders  at  the  industry,  pa 
tience  and  skill  which  has  achieved  so  much  ;  even  now, 
he  praises  the  architect,  as  if  he  had  finished  his  work  ; 
the  structure,  as  if  it  were  completed.  One  of  these 
travellers  accordingly  goes  home,  and  gives  an  account 
of  the  extreme  confusion,  the  unsatisfactory  condition, 
the  hopeless  state,  of  the  temple  he  has  visited  ;  the 
other  goes  home  and  describes  the  fine  progress,  the 
rich  preparations,  the  admirable  design.  Both  have 
seen  the  same  thing.  Yet  one  describes  the  temple  as 
a  ruin,  a  mortification,  a  disappointment  ;  the  other  de 
clares  it  a  perfect  work,  a  glorious  object,  a  grand  suc 
cess.  But  have  not  both  equally  admired  the  design  ? 
and  have  not  both,  probably,  equally  perceived  its 
present  incompleteness,  and  been  equally  conscious  of 
the  confusion  and  rubbish  about  the  works  ?  Are  they, 
then,  as  much  disagreed  in  fact,  as  they  are  in  lan 
guage  ?  When  one  speaks  of  the  building,  he  refers  to 


244  THE    RE-ADJUSTMENT    OF    FAITH. 

the  design,  and  the  fitness  of  the  materials,  and  the 
progress  of  the  works  towards  the  consummation  of  the 
plan  ;  when  the  other  speaks  of  it,  he  refers  to  the 
works,  and  their  present  incomplete  state,  and  disap 
pointing  condition  as  compared  with  the  plan  itself.  So 
it  is  with  human  nature  ;  some  men,  seeing  the  glorious 
design  in  its  materials,  fasten  their  attention  upon  its 
capacities,  its  powers,  its  destiny,  and  will  allow  jione 
of  its  temporary  flaws,  weaknesses  and  crudities,  to  de 
tract  from  their  sense  of  its  proper  glory  and  perfection  ; 
others,  noticing  its  actual  distance  from  its  goal,  its  iut- 
mature  and  struggling  state,  its  discouragements  and  ob 
stacles  within  and  without,  and,  comparing  it  with  the 
divine  standard  of  character,  pronounce  it  fallen,  de 
praved  and  lost.  But  they  are  evidently  not  talking 
about  the  same  thing.  The  phrase  human  nature  does 
not  mean  the  same  to  both  parties.  The  word  man  is 
applied  differently  by  them.  One  means  by  it  the  pos 
sible,  the  designed,  the  ideal  being  ;  the  other,  the  actual, 
undeveloped,  incomplete  creature.  One  finds  the  glorious 
standard  triumphantly  indicated  and  pointed  to  in  the 
materials  ;  the  other  sees,  the  standard  looking  down 
upon  and  shaming  the  materials  which  are  pointed  at 
rather  than  pointing  to.  But  I  have  long  thought  that 
the  doctrine  of  Human  Depravity  was  only  an  inverted 
praise  and  exaltation  of  human  nature,  as  a  school 
master,  when  he  complains  of  the  imperfect  handwrit 
ing  of  his  pupil,  and  points  him  with  shame  to  his  copy, 
confesses  the  boy's  capacity  to  write  better,  and  stimu 
lates  him  to  an  excellence  he  has  latent  in  his  will. 

This   dispute  about   the  materials  of  our  nature, 
however,  is  not  the  whole  of  the  dispute,  and  is,  indeed, 


HUMAN    NATURE.  245 

much  the  least  difficult  part  of  it.  We  have  spoken 
of  a  half-finished  structure,  which  might  he  called  a 
ruin,  or  a  rising  edifice,  according  as  it  gave  evidence  or 
not  of  ever  having  been  any  thing  better  ;  or  of  there 
being  now  any  building  force  at  work  upon  it.  Human 
nature,  perfect  in  its  design,  it  is  asserted,  has  lost  both 
the  plan  on  which  it  was  framed,  and  the  architect  alone 
capable  of  rearing  it  rightly.  The  plan  was  originally 
revealed  in  a  clear  and  perfect  conscience,  the  architect 
present  in  an  unbroken  and  righteous  will.  The  ample 
materials — their  presence,  their  beauty  and  fitness,  are 
not  by  this  hypothesis  denied.  Man's  passions,  powers, 
emotions,  apprehensions,  confess  their  divine  origin 
and  their  glorious  paternity.  But  man,  no  longer,  since 
the  fall,  sees  what  God  made  him  for,  and  seeing  imper 
fectly,  is,  for  a  double  reason,  incapable  of  doing  what 
God  demands  of  him,  because  his  will  is  as  weak  as  his 
conscience  is  blind.  This,  it  is  maintained,  was  his  real 
fall — not  the  change  of  his  faculties  and  powers,  his 
natural  affections,  aspirations  and  qualities — his  build 
ing  materials,  so  to  speak — but  the  change  of  his  moral 
nature  ;  of  his  conscience,  which  is  now  defiled,  of  his 
will,  which  is  now  broken  and  perverted — that  is,  the 
loss  of  plan  and  architect,  of  the  knowledge  how  to  use 
the  materials  he  possesses  for  his  proper  edification,  and 
of  the  energy  and  disposition  to  use  them.  Now,  if  a 
change  like  this  were  alleged  to  have  occurred  at  some 
considerable  time  after  man's  creation,  we  might  think 
it  not  incredible  ;  for  it  would  then  look*  as  if  man, 
originally  made  with  powers  and  faculties  fitted  for  his 
own  protection  and  growth,  had,  through  wilfulness, 
abused  and  perverted  his  trust,  and  involved  his  sue- 


246  THE    RE-ADJUSTMENT    OF    FAITH. 

cessors  in  moral  difficulty.  But  when  we  are  asked  to 
believe  that  the  first  man — who,  though  fresh  from  the 
Creator's  hands,  and  with  no  companions  to  misuse  or 
tempt  him  aside,  on  the  first  opportunity  succumbed  in 
his  conscience  and  his  will,  before  a  frivolous  tempta 
tion — had  a  better  nature  than  we  have,  a  keener  and 
clearer  conscience,  a  more  erect  and  powerful  will,  we 
confess  that  reason  refuses  her  assent.  In  what  respect 
did  he  exhibit  any  moral  faculties  superior  to  ours  ? 
Of  what  advantage  to  him  was  his  unfallen  nature  and 
his  fresh  and  pure  soul  ?  Did  not  his  fall  prove  that 
conscience  and  will  are  faculties  in  man  which,  by  the 
very  theory  of  his  nature,  are  dependent  on  experience, 
culture  and  discipline  for  their  development  ?  How 
should  an  innocent  being  know  any  thing  about  tempta 
tion,  or  evil,  or  sin,  before  he  had  experienced  cither ; 
and  not  knowing  them,  how  should  he  know  any  thing 
about  resistance,  or  goodness,  or  holiness  ?  Adam's  fall 
was  the  most  natural  thing  in  the  world,  and  neither 
unforeseen  by,  nor  discreditable  to,  his  Maker ;  who 
knew  that  his  child  must  learn  to  walk,  by  first  stum 
bling  ;  and  the  punishment  so-called,  which  the  first 
sin  brought  upon  his  head,  was  a  blessing  in  disguise. 
The  garden  he  was  thrust  from  is  that  state  of  indolent 
innocence  in  which  all  children  are  born — where  they 
are  provided  for  by  a  domestic  providence,  which  makes 
no  demands  upon  them — but  out  of  which  the*y  are 
thrust  the  moment  they  begin  to  feel  the  motions  of  an 
independent  will  ;  thrust  into  a  state  of  exposure,  of 
temptation  and  sin  ;  but  also  of  discipline,  of  virtue 
and  progress.  The  race  learned  in  the  first  man  that  it 
was  framed  for  resistance,  struggle,  experience,  growth 


HUMAN    NATURE.  247 

— for  the  knowledge  of  good  and  evil,  and  for  the  prefer 
ence  of  good  by  the  experience  of  evil ;  formed  to  sin 
and  repent  and  reform,  and  achieve  moral  dignity  and 
perfection,  through  tribulation,  anguish  and  shame,  sub 
dued  by  ever-increasing  light  in  the  conscience,  and 
growing  vigor  in  the  will. 

Now,  our  orthodox  brethren  have  a  notion  that 
all  this  temptation,  trial  and  discipline  might  have 
been  avoided  ;  that  sin  need  never  have  been  a 
human  experience  ;  that  if  Adam  had  only  obeyed 
God,  his  children  would  have  obeyed  him,  too,  and  this 
world  thus  have  been  a  perpetual  Paradise  ;  our  na 
ture  everywhere  reflecting  perfectly  its  Maker's  glory. 
But  are  there  some  honest  people,  who  would  like 
to  exchange  the  world  we  live  in,  for  the  primeval 
paradise,  and  the  people  we  live  with,  for  Adams  and 
Eves  ?  Did  Adam  and  Eve  in  their  sinlessness  re 
flect  God's  glory,  as  much  as  David  and  Peter,  and 
St.  Augustin  and  Cromwell,  in  their  sinfulness  ?  Is 
an  idle  life  of  innocence,  preferred  by  God,  to  a  busy 
and  laborious  life  of  mingled  good  and  evil,  resistance 
and  submission  to  temptation  ?  It  is  high  time  theolo 
gians  dealt  more  honestly  by  their  own  convictions, 
and  abandoned  their  theories  for  sober  facts.  If  we 
are  jealous  for  the  glory  of  God,  let  us  be  a  little  jealous 
for  his  honor  and  character,  as  a  creator  ;  for  his  know 
ing  what  he  was  about  when  he  made  our  race,  and 
foresaw  our  history  and  planned  our  salvation.  I  know 
no  indignity  that  can  be  put  upon  God,  greater  than 
the  Supposition,  that  the  first  human  creature  he  made 
had  power  to  thwart  and  defy  his  omnipotence,  to 
change  the  whole  plan  of  history,  and  to  introduce 
into  the  world  and  the  universe,  an  element,  not  de- 


248  THE   RE-ADJUSTMENT    OF    FAITH. 

sired,  nor  expected,  nor  controllable  by  him,  called  sin  / 
the  frightful  cause  of  his  eternal  displeasure  towards 
millions  of  his  unborn  creatures.  Sin  is,  by  the  fore 
knowledge  and  permission,  in  plainer  language,  by  the 
will  of  God,  a  characterestic  element  in  the  schooling 
of  human  nature.  It  is  the  friction  of  a  vast  machine, 
slowly  finding  its  adjustment  ;  it  is  the  sweat  and  groan 
ing  of  the  soul's  struggle  with*  itself  and  its  circum 
stances  ;  it  is  the  awful  shadow  of  the  moral  nature  ; 
it  is  the  frightful  cost  of  our  possible  creation  in  the 
image  of  God  ;  it  is  the  blow  the  soul  receives,  when 
it  passionately  or  ignorantly  runs  upon  the  bosses  of 
God's  buckler,  the  eternal  law,  and  leaves  gaping 
wounds  upon  itself,  and  blood  upon  the  wall  !  I  will 
do  nothing  to  support  the  views  of  any  who  .make  light 
of  sin,  who  name  it  error,  mistake,  negation — who 
think  its  sway  superficial,  and  its  effects  temporary. 
I  know  too  well  its  malignant  nature  and  its  bitter 
fruits — the  pertinacity  of  its  root,  and  the  poison  of  its 
subtile  sap.  But  vast,  profound,  tremendous  as  it  is, 
lasting  as  its  consequences,  and  frightful  as  its  conta 
gion,  I  hold  it  to  be  the  necessary  price  and  cost  of 
human  existence  ;  that,  without  which,  our  being 
could  not  be  projected,  nor  our  discipline  and  creation 
in  God's  image,  be  undertaken.  I  do  not  think  human 
ity  a  work  of  God's  leisure  ;  a  creation  of  his  infinite 
genius  thrown  from  him  in  a  mood  of  pleasure.  Diffi 
cult  as  it  may  be  to  conceive  of  one  thing  as  requiring 
aught  more  of  effort  than  another,  where  infinite  attri 
butes  are  concerned,  yet  it  is  in  a  spirit  of  profound  rev 
erence  and  adoring  awe,  that  I  think  of  God  as  under 
taking  all  that  is  most  lasting  and  tremendous  within 


HUMAN    NATURE.  249 

his  powers,  in  the  conception  and  gradual  creation  of  a 
race  of  moral  and  rational  beings,  destined  finally  to  be 
his  own  companions,  to  dwell  in  his  society  and  partake 
his  own  nature.  The  enormous  and  contradictory 
powers  and  processes  involved  in  this  undertaking — the 
union  of  free-will  with  utter  dependence — the  harmony 
of  a  creature  set  up  on  his  own  account,  with  subordina 
tion  to  the  Creator  who  sets  him  up — the  conflict  of 
the  powers  necessary  to  make  him  strong,  earnest, 
capable,  with  the  restraints  needful  to  keep  him  safe, 
upright  and  true — the  necessity  of  temptation,  with  the 
dangers  of  it — the  absolute  requirement  of  the  knowledge 
of  evil,  and  the  consequent  origin  of  sin,  with  the  neces 
sity  of  God's  not  becoming  the  author  of  sin — what  can 
exceed  the  tremendous  difficulties  involved  in  the  very 
idea  of  humanity  ?  It  is  not  needful  to  look  beyond 
the  world  we  live  in  to  perceive  at  what  enormous  cost 
the  Almighty  carries  on  his  work  of  creation.  If  abor 
tion,  defect,  failure,  miscarriage  in  the  parts,  were  ob 
jections  involving  so  seriously  his  attributes  and  dig 
nity,  that  he  could  fitly  undertake  nothing  which  did 
not  succeed  in  all  the  particulars  as  well  as  in  the  gen 
eral  end,  we  should  have  neither  fish,  nor  flowers,  nor 
fruits,  nor  any  of  the  products  of  soil  or  sea,  of  which 
the  part  that  matures  is  always  but  a  small  proportion 
of  the  part  that  fails.  Creation  goes  on  in  all  its  parts, 
with  enormous  waste  and  strain,  at  vast  expense^  and 
with  a  success  in  generals,  in  the  preservation  of  orders 
and  genera  and  species,  purchased  only  by  the  loss  and 
ruin  of  individuals  and  particulars.  There  .is  a  certain 
obduracy  and  intractableness  in  matter  itself,  which 
seems  to  baffle  the  ever-striving  soul  of  nature  to  per- 


250  THE    RE-ADJUSTMENT    OF    FAITH. 

feet  each  and  every  work  of  her  hand.  And  I  repeat, 
were  the  perfections  of  the  Deity  compromised  or  dis 
proved,  by  his  permission  or  endurance  of  imperfection 
in  the  details  of  his  material  universe,  that  is,  by  the  ex 
istence  of  physical  evil,  the  pain  of  animals,  the  starva 
tion  of  innocent  flocks,  the  drying  up  of  streams  caus 
ing  the  death  of  myriads  of  fish,  the  blighting  of  flowers 
and  fruits,  we  should  be  obliged  to  declare  a  Being  not 
absolute  in  his  attributes  on  the  throne  of  the  universe. 
But  it  is  only  because  of  our  poor  and  superficial  no 
tions  of  what  perfection  is,  that  we  reckon  pain  and  evil 
and  waste,  as  not  possible  under  the  government  of  an 
omnipotent  God  of  infinite  benevolence.  Doubtless 
these  very  wastes  are,  in  God's  view,  vast  economies  ; 
this  very  pain,  the  occasion  of  greater  pleasure  ;  this 
very  evil,  the  means  of  a  preponderant  good.  A  larger 
knowledge  of  the  laws  of  matter,  of  the  sensitive  or 
ganization  of  insects  and  animals,  of  the  relations  be 
tween  matter  and  mind  ;  and  of  analogies  of  evil  per 
mitted,  nay  employed,  in  the  material  world,  for  the 
moral  education  of  man,  its  possessor,  would  doubtless 
teach  us  that  God  sees  proportion,  where  our  partial 
vision  finds  deformity,  and  hears  harmony  where  our 
dull  ears,  that  lose  most  of  the  chords,  catch  only  de 
tached  and  broken  notes. 

"  Qne  part,  one  little  part,  we  dimly  scan 
Through  the  dark  medium  of  life's  feverish  dream ; 
Yet  dare  arraign  the  whole  stupendous  plan 
If  but  that  little  part,  incongruous  seem. 
Nor  is  that  little  part  perhaps,  what  mortals  dream  ; 
Oft  from  apparent  ill,  our  blessings  rise."  * 

1  Beattie's  Minstrel,  50th  stanza. 


HUMAN   NATURE.  251 

But  the  point  lies  here.  If  God  encounter  costly 
obstacles  even  in  the  material  creation,  and  is  willing 
to  incur  the  appearance  of  defeat,  the  presence  of  evil, 
the  failure  of  particulars,  to  accomplish  certain  grand 
results,  why  should  we  wonder,  that  in  his  mightier  and 
holier  aim,  to  create  and  rear  children  of  his  mind,  and 
heart  and  conscience,  he  should  incur  moral  risks,  and 
the  existence  of  moral  evil,  and  the  painful  and  fright 
ful  consequences  which  sin  itself  introduces  into  the 
universe  ? 

Did  he  not  anticipate  and  ordain  physical  evil  in 
the  material  universe  ?  or  has  it  slipped  in,  in  spite  of 
him,  without  his  consent  and  against  his  knowledge  ? 
Certainly,  the  last  hypothesis  is  the  more  dishonorable 
to  the  Governor  of  the  universe.  Did  he  not,  likewise, 
anticipate  and  permit  sin  ?  or  has  that  surprised  and 
disappointed  and  baffled  his  expectations  and  plans  ? 
Certainly  this  supposition  is  the  more  fatal  to  his  honor 
and  wisdom.  It  will  not  answer  to  say  that  God 
creates  sin,  or  ordains  sin  ;  because,  by  its  very  defini 
tion,  sin  is  the  act  of  a  free  being — and  it  must  always 
originate  in  perfect  freedom.  It  belongs,  therefore,  to 
its  perpetrator,  and  to  nobody  else.  It  may,  indeed,  be 
imputed,  but  it  cannot  be  transferred.  But  God  creates 
moral  beings,  and  places  them  in  circumstances  where 
they  will,  and  where  he  knows  they  will,  sin.  And  if- 
sin  were  so  great  and  absolute  an  evil,  that  there  is  no 
good  so  good,  as  that  evil  is  evil,  God  could  not,  with 
honor,  create  imperfect  and  tempted  moral  beings. 
That  he  has  done  so,  proves  that  bad  as  sin  is,  goodness 
has  a  worth  in  God's  eyes  greater  than  his  hatred  of 
sin — that  is,  he  will  sooner  have  man  with  his  sins, 


252  THE    RE-ADJUSTMENT    OF    FAITH. 

than  not  have  man  and  get  rid  of  all  sin.  He  will 
sooner  have  moral  beings,  capable  of  likeness  to  him 
self,  and  take  the  risk  of  their  defalcations  and  failures, 
than  have  a  spotless,  sinless  universe,  void  and  vacant 
of  moral  and  rational  life.  The  enormity,  and  hateful- 
ness  and  indignity  of  sin,  is  the  true  measure  of  God's 
valuation  of  rectitude,  and  virtue  and  worth  in  man. 
But  when  we  say  that  sin  is  not  so  great  an  evil  as 
goodness  is  a  blessing — and  that  sin  abounds,  that  grace 
may  more  abound,  let  us  remember  that  we  are  not 
taking  away  from  sin  its  actual  and  intense  evil — but 
only  its  power,  to  defeat  the  whole  design  of  God's 
creation.  Do  not,  then,  make  light  of  sin  without  you 
mean  to  make  light  of  man,  and  light  of  God  !  No 
account  of  the  horror,  the  malignity,  the  offensiveness 
of  sin  in  God's  eyes,  or  of  its  ruinous  tendencies  and 
consequences,  can  well  be  too  darkly  painted.  We  are 
not  half  aware  how  poisonous  and  permanent  its  virus 
is — how  deep  it  reaches  back,  how  far  it  stretches  for 
ward  ;  how  subtle,  devilish  and  awful  its  works  are  ! 
When  I  think  of  God — hating  sin  as  a  Holy  Being 
must,  with  immeasurable  hatred — seeing  all  its  possible 
devastations,  the  disorder,  guilt,  confusion,  misery,  it 
must  introduce  into  a  fair  and  perfect  and  moral  uni 
verse — hearing  in  advance  its  accumulated  groans  and 
anguish — seeing  war  and  pestilence,  murder  arid  incest, 
sensuality  and  hatred,  all  dabbled  in  blood  and  reeking 
with  pollution,  yet  blazoning  their  shame,  and  defying 
his  throne,  as  they  follow  in  the  train  of  that  cruel 
Queen  of  Hell;  when  I  contemplate  the  pure  and  om 
niscient,  the  loving  and  omnipotent  God,  counting  all 
this  frightful  sum  of  moral  evil,  as  the  certain  cost  of 


HUMAN    NATURE.  253 

the  creation  of  a  race  of  moral  beings — that  is,  beings 
with  wills  of  their  own,  necessarily  weak  and  exposed, 
left  to  struggle  with  temptations  essential  to  their  pos 
sible  destiny  as  virtuous  beings — that  is,  as  children  of 
God — I  have  a  conception  of  the  value  which  the 
Creator  places  on  humanity,  a  sense  of  his  intense  and 
insatiable  desire  for  true  children,  of  his  priceless  esti 
mate  of  human  rectitude,  and  of  the  truth  and  love 
and  goodness  which  come  out  of  this  fiery  and  slag- 
clogged  crucible  of  human  life,  which  I  can  get  in  no 
other  way,  and  which  fills  me  with  an  adoration  and 
gratitude  that  no  other  reflections  can  excite  ! 

Consider,  then,  my  brethren,  what  an  enormous  re 
sponsibility  you  carry  in  your  nature  !  God  has  trusted 
you,  in  the  gift  of  a  free  and  independent  will,  with 
the  terrible  power  of  making  yourself  a  blot  and  a 
wreck  upon  the  face  of  his  universe— that  you  might 
possess  the  glorious  power  of  making  yourself  a  temple 
and  an  altar  there  !  He  has  trusted  you  with  a  heaven 
ly  spark,  with  which  you  may  kindle  an  undying  flame 
of  virtue,  or  may  set  off  a  magazine  of  wrong.  He  has 
given  you  the  power  to  be  a  demon  or  an  angel — to 
people  the  city  of  your  God,  or  swell  the  ranks  of  ruin 
and  despair.  You  have  it  in  your  own  hands  to  become 
the  child,  the  helper,  the  co-worker  with  God  and 
Christ,  or  the  slave  of  the  devil  and  his  angels.  And 
yet,  some  of  you  are  thinking  how  insignificant  your  in 
fluence,  how  unimportant  your  choice  is  !  My  brethren, 
nothing  is  insignificant,  nothing  unimportant,  which  a 
child  of  God,  a  moral  and  rational  creature,  does.  All 
the  folly,  crime  and  sin,  humanity  has  heaped  upon  it 
self,  has  not  diminished  its  preciousness  in  God's  sight  ; 


254  THE    RE-ADJUSTMENT    OF    FAITH. 

nor  did  the  leper,  the  harlot,  and  the  murderer  find 
themselves  beyond  the  sympathy,  the  boundless  interest 
and  pitying  love  of  Christ.  He  would  have  died  as  free 
ly  to  have  saved  one  of  them  as  to  save  the  race  ;  for 
each  of  them  had  an  immortal,  priceless  soul !  Arid 
the  depth  of  God's  love  is  quickened  by  the  very  expo 
sure,  the  possible  ruin,  of  his  children.  We  may,  in  our 
blindness,  make  light  of  sin — think  of  it  as  weakness, 
as  error — as  pardonable  and  superficial.  Christ  did  not 
shed  his  holy  blood  for  any  such  triviality.  God  did  not 
send  his  only  Son  on  any  such  indifferent  message.  The 
Bible  was  not  written  by  any  persons  who  thought  so 
of  sin  ;  nor  have  saints  and  martyrs  and  apostles  lived 
and  died  in  any  such  faith.  Conscience,  that  awful 
monitor,  consents  to  no  such  verdict.  Remorse  gathers 
its  blackness  and  paints  its  pictures  from  no  such 
palette.  The  dignity  and  glory  of  virtue  rejects  the 
estimate  which  such  views  of  vice  and  sin  put  upon  her 
own  struggling  and  scarred  victories. 

Think  not  of  sin,  then,  as  otherwise  than  infinitely 
hateful — as  involving  consequences  of  immeasurable 
misery — as  utterly  and  forever  the  foe  of  God  and  man, 
the  gate  and  the  fire  of  hell.  And  that  you  may  think 
rightly,  and  with  an  unquenchable  aspiration  of  good 
ness — that  you  may  know  the  glorious  destiny  of  which 
your  soul  is  capable — keep  the  nature  and  the  dreadful- 
ness  of  sin,  and  the  possibilities  of  moral  ruin  and 
guilty  degradation,  to  which  you  are  constitutionally 
exposed,  ever  before  you.  Honor  your  nature — by 
thinking  what  your  existence  costs  God  !  Hide  not  its 
exposures,  its  perils,  its  alternative  doom  of  shame  and 
ruin  ;  for  it  is  only  by  knowing,  owning,  measuring  the 


HUMAN    NATURE.  255 

depths  of  our  possible  guilt,  that  we  can  know  and  esti 
mate  the  weight  of  that  crown  which  obedience,  virtue 
and  holiness  will  place  upon  our  heads. 

Think  not  of  evil,  or  of  sin,  as  God's  curse.     But 
take  up  the  language  of  the  poet,  and  ask — 

"  What  golden  fruit  lies  hidden  in  its  husk. 
How  shall  it  nurse  my  virtue,  nerve  my  will,- 
Chasten  my  passions,  purify  my  love, 
And  make  me  in  some  goodly  sense,  like  Him 
Who  bore  the  cross  of  evil,  while  he  lived, 
"Who  hung  and  bled  upon  it  when  he  died, 
And  now  in  glory,  wears  the  victor's  crown."  1 

DEC.  12,  1858. 

1  Bitter-Sweet,  by  E.  G.  Holland. 


SERMON  XVI. 

HUMAN  NATURE— ITS  NEED  OF  THE  HOLY  SPIRIT. 

"  For  as  in  Adam  all  die,  even  so  in  Christ  shall  all  be  made  alive." 
"  The  first  man,  Adam,  was  made  a  living  soul ;  the  last  Adam  was  mudo 
a  quickening  spirit."-— 1  COR.  xv.  22,  45. 

ADAM  and  Christ  are  here  represented  as  the  be 
ginners  of  two  different  creations,  man  being  the  sub 
ject  of  both.  Moreover,  they  are  put  forth  as  our  rep 
resentatives,  so  that  what  happened  to  them,  in  some 
very  important  sense,  happened  to  us.  I  need  not 
trouble  you  with  the  history  of  theological  opinion  in 
regard  to  the  relations  of  humanity  to  Adam  and  to 
Christ.  You  are  familiar  with  the  great  place  which 
Adam's  fall  has  had  in  the  various  systems  of  religion 
popular  in  the  world,  and  with  the  peculiar  efficacy  at 
tributed  to  Christ's  sacrifice,  in  removing  the  curse 
which  it  is  alleged  to  have  brought  upon  the  human 
race.  It  is  not  my  purpose  to  controvert  any  opinions 
of  others,  but  to  explain  and  set  forth  the  truth  con 
tained  in  these  words  of  Scripture,  for  our  own  edifica 
tion  on  this  day  of  communion.  So  much  of  a  believer 
am  I  in  the  gracious  providence  which  has  accompanied 
the  history  of  the  Christian  Church,  that  I  should  have 


HUMAN    NATURE.  257 

as  great  a  reluctance  as  the  most  devoted  Romanist  to 
differ  from,  much  more  to  deny,  any  article  of  faith 
which  has  ever  received  the  stamp  of  Catholicity,  i.  e., 
which  has  been  generally  received  by  Christians  as 
"  the  mind  of  the  Spirit."  I  believe  that  the  Church, 
meaning  the  great  body  of  visible  believers,  has  always 
had  in  its  charge  and  in  its  consciousness,  the  essential 
doctrines  and  the  saving  spirit  of  the  Gospel,  and  that 
the  decrees  of  the  great  councils,  and  the  statements 
of  faith  of  the  great  fathers,  have  been  made  under  the 
guidance  of  the  Holy  Ghost.  I  am  persuaded  that  the 
very  formularies  in  which  the  principles  arid  spirit  of 
the  Gospel  were  enshrined — the  now  offensive  and 
effete  formulas  of  orthodoxy — were,  at  the  time,  the 
only  forms  which  could  have  preserved,  much  more 
have  set  forth,  the  simple  truths  of  our  Christian  faith, 
or  brought  them  to  bear  upon  society  and  humanity  in 
a  saving  way.  The  significance  and  power  which  the 
creed  of  the  Church  possessed  and  emitted,  was  true, 
wholesome,  saving  ;  whether  the  propositions  that  enun 
ciated  it  were  logically  and  eternally  true  or  not. 
For  instance,  it  was  far  more  important  that  Christ's 
authority  should  be  recognized  as  divine,  than  that  his 
person  should  not  be  confounded  and  identified  with 
God's  own  ;  and  if  this  temporary  identification,  hon 
estly  made,  was  necessary  to  the  maintenance  of  his 
spiritual  supremacy  in  the  world,  then  the  Athanasian 
creed  was  not  false  in  spirit,  or  unwise  and  misguided 
in  form,  though  it  was  only  temporary  in  character. 
And  so  I  might  say  of  the  doctrine  of  Adam's  fall,  or 
of  the  vicarious  atonement,  or  of  the  sacramental 
character  of  the  Christian  ordinances.  What  the  uni- 


258  THE    RE-ADJUSTMENT   OF    FAITH. 

versal  Church  has  taught  on  these  subjects  has  been, 
in  essence,  the  truth.  What  the  people  believed,  was, 
in  essence,  the  truth.  We  take  these  statements  now, 
and  examine  them  with  cold,  critical  judgments,  in 
sisting  upon  making  them  mean  all  their  words  will 
hold,  and  then  assuming  that  the  grammatical  meaning 
we  can  demonstrate  them  to  have,  is  the  sort  of  signifi 
cance  they  possessed  for  those  who  formed,  and  those 
who  received  them.  But  I  believe  no  such  thing.  I 
am  yet  to  be  persuaded  that  any  of  the  dreadful  con 
tradictions  and  follies  which  we  can  show  to  exist  in 
the  language  of  these  creeds,  existed  in  the  minds  and 
hearts  of  those  who  made  or  first  received  them.  Their 
framers  did  not  use  them  for  logical  and  metaphysical  pur 
poses,  but  as  appeals  to  the  imagination  and  the  heart  ; 
and  they  evoked  in  the  souls  of  their  disciples,  convic 
tions  and  feelings  which  were  not  absurd  and  monstrous. 
Thus  the  formal  Trinitarianism  of  the  ancient 
creeds  was  always  interpreted  by  the  essential  Uni- 
tarianism  of  the  more  ancient  human  mind  and  heart. 
If  you  know  perfectly,  and  feel  in  every  member,  joint, 
and  limb,  that  the  Creator  of  the  universe  is  God,  in 
a  sense  in  which  no  other  being  can  be  God,  then  it  is 
safe  to  call  Christ,  and  the  Holy  Ghost,  God,  on  account 
of  their  being  essential  to  the  true  revelation  of  this 
only  God.  But  if  there  were  any  real  doubt  about  the 
sole  and  unshared  unity  of  the  Creator,  then  it  would 
not  be  safe.  Thus  the  Trinitarianism  of  the  Church  is 
to  me  only  an  additional  argument  for  the  Unitarian- 
ism  of  the  soul.  And  I  doubt  not  the  deity  of  Christ 
(until  these  latter  days  of  verbal  criticism  came)  was 
held  by  the  body  of  the  Christian  Church  in  a  way  not 


HUMAN    NATURE.  259 

menacing  to,  or  truly  falsifying  of,  the  proper,  sole  sove 
reignty  of  the  Father.  It  was  held  (as  the  very  phrase, 
the  second  person,  intimated)  in  a  way  that  recognized 
dependence  arid  inferiority. 

And  so  of  the  corruption  of  human  nature,  through 
its  fall  in  Adam.  I  have  never  yet  been  able  clearly  to 
make  out,  after  the  proper  explanations  and  modifica 
tions  were  admitted  on  both  sides,  much  practical  dif 
ference  between  those  who  affirm  and  those  who  deny 
the  depravity  of  human  nature.  I  am  persuaded  that 
among  thinkers  and  experienced  men  of  spiritual  dis 
cernment,  there  cannot  be  now,  and  there  never  could 
have  been,  any  real  diversity  of  judgment  concerning  the 
character  of  shuman  nature.  Consider  the  absurdity  of 
supposing  men  of  sonso  to  differ  in  regard  to  the  most 
ancient,  universal  and  cognizable  of  all  subjects,  to  the 
extent  of  the  difference  implied  in  the  terms  the 
"total  depravity/' and  "perfect  rectitude"  of  man's 
nature  !  Do  you  suppose  that  on  bringing  together  the 
most  orthodox  and  the  most  liberal  men  of  our  day,  as 
suming  them  to  be  equally  intelligent  and  compe 
tent,  and  placing  before  them  a  new-born  child — any 
real  difference  of  opinion  would  exist  between  them, 
spite  of  all  their  antagonistic  phraseology,  in  regard  to 
the  actual  state  of  that  child  ?  Would  not  both  of  them 
admit  the  influence  of  hereditary  traits  and  qualities  ; 
confess  the  connection  which  the  child  by  his  organiza 
tion  had  with  the  infirmities  arid  the  virtues,  the  total 
qualities  of  its  ancestry,  its  race  and  its  age  ?  Would 
not  both  believe  in  its  freedom  from  actual  sin,  in  its 
essential  purity  and  innocency  ?  Is  it  any  thing  more 
than  a  different  way  of  saying  the  same  thing,  which 


260  THE    RE-ADJUSTMENT    OF    FAITH. 

these  sectarian  antagonists  are  about,  when  they  seem 
to  be  at  such  sword-points  of  doctrine  ? 

There  is  then,  doubtless,  in  accordance  with  this 
showing,  a  real  and  grand  truth  in  the  Catholic  doctrine 
of  the  fall  of  man  in  Adam.  Adam  stood  for  and  rep 
resented  his  race.  Any  other  man  in  his  circumstances 
would  have  acted  as  he  acted,  and  every  man  since  has 
acted  as  he  acted.  It  was  not,  however,  Adam's  nature 
that  fell,  but  merely  he  himself;  that  is  to  say,  his  na 
ture  was  no  other  after  his  fall  than  before.  It  was  no 
more  weak  than  before.  For  if  stronger  before  he  fell 
than  since,  how  did  he  yield  so  easily  to  temptation  ? 
What  advantage  did  his  unfallen  nature  give  him  ? 
No  !  Adam's  nature  was  illustrated,  not  changed,  by  his 
fall.  He  was  created  liable  to,  and  certain  of,  his  fall. 
And  his  fall  was  simply  an  exhibition  and  evidence  of 
his  total  inability  to  keep  the  commandments  of  God  in 
his  own  independent  strength  ;  that  is  to  say,  his  intellect 
and  conscience  were  made  so  much  mo  re  powerful  than  his 
will,  that  he  was  constituted  to  see  and  feel  the  obliga- 
toriness  of  duties  which  he  had  no  adequate  resolution 
and  power  of  character  to  observe  and  perform.  Do 
you  think  it  a  strange  thing  that  God  should  have  de 
liberately  made  man  with  a  mind  and  conscience  clearer 
and  stronger  than  his  heart  and  will  ?  I  think  I  can 
make  it  probable  to  you,  that  God's  apparent  designs  to 
wards  us  could  never  have  been  completed  upon  any 
other  plan  ;  that  man  must  have  been  made  an  unbal 
anced,  exposed,  and  self-ruining  creature,  to  admit  of 
his  becoming  in  the  end  a  divinely  directed,  heaven- 
controlled,  and  God-redeemed  creature.  And  I  have 
no  difficulty  in  admitting  that  human  nature,  consid- 


HUMAN   NATURE.  261 

ered  by  itself,  left  to  itself,  tends,  by  its  very  and  in 
tentional  constitution,  to  self-destruction.  This  indeed 
is  precisely  what  is  meant  by  Adam's  fall,  and  by  our 
all  falling  in  him.  Human  nature  is,  by  the  act  of 
creation,  put  upon  its  feet;  and  by  its  first  step  precip 
itates  itself  upon  its  head.  It  is  a  wondrous  creation, 
full  of  power  and  beauty,  and  with  evident  capacities 
for  doing  noble  acts  and  becoming  a  glorious  thing  ;  but 
it  is  clear  that  the  conditions  of  its  success  are  yet  want 
ing,  and  that  it  is  a  failure,  if  this  is  the  best  it  can  do. 
A  fish  upon  the  land,  a  bird  in  the  sea,  a  beast  in  the 
quicksands,  could  not  exhibit  a  more  perfect  defeat  of 
its  being  than  the  first  man,  Adam,  did  of  the  glory  of 
human  nature.  And  yet  he  did,  as  we  have  said,  only 
what  any  man  would  have  done,  and  what  every  man 
does  do  :  he  yielded  to  temptation,  he  became  a  sinner, 
he  put  himself  at  enmity  with  God  !  What  the  natu 
ral  end  of  such  a  being  and  such  a  course  of  conduct 
must  be,  if  not  interfered  with  and  prevented,  is  clear 
enough.  You  must  know  very  well  what  a  race  tends 
to,  whose  very  progenitor  begins  his  career  with  delib 
erate  transgression.  Could  it  do  anything  but  fly  from 
bad  to  worse  ?  Was  not  the  first  murderer  the  neces 
sary  offspring  of  such  a  parent,  and  a  generation  of  in 
cestuous  and  wicked  people,  worthy  of  being  ingulfed 
in  the  original  deluge,  the  inevitable  successors  of 
such  an  ancestry  ?  It  was  no  unexpected  result  of  hu 
man  nature  left  to  itself  and  acting  out  its  own  pro 
clivities.  All  history  shows  us  what  man  is  and  does  ; 
what  he  tends  to  and  becomes,  when  he  follows  out  his 
o\\n  nature.  His  constitution  is,  in  its  original  make, 
unbalanced.  Its  passions  and  desires  are  stronger  than 


2G2  THE    RE-ADJUSTMENT    OF    FAITH. 

its  power  of  self-control  ;  its  perceptions  of  right,  finer 
and  firmer  than  its  determinations  of  will.  Thus  man 
becomes  a  sinner  naturally.  You  will,  of  course,  ask, 
if  this  is  not  making  his  nature  sinful,  and  so  relieving 
him  of  all  responsibility  ?  I  reply,  sin  does  not  belong 
to  natures,  but  to  individuals.  There  is  no  such  thing 
as  a  sinful  nature,  but  only  a  sinful  person  ;  and  be 
cause  our  nature  prompts,  and  even  drives  us  into  sin, 
you  can  no  more  free  it  from  the  sense  of  responsibility 
and  of  blame  involved  in  it,  than  you  can  put  the  wolf, 
when,  according  to  his  nature,  he  tears  the  lamb,  into 
the  same  category  of  compassionate  interest  and  sympa 
thy  with  the  lamb  itself.  God  does  not  commit  our 
sins,  and  our  ancestors  do  not  commit  them,  and  no 
body  can  feel  guilty  for  them  but  those  who  do  commit 
them.  That  we  have  this  nature  is  a  ground  of  pity, 
which  God  himself  admits  and  acts  upon  ;  but  it  does 
not,  and  it  never  did,  diminish  any  man's  sense  of  sin, 
that  all  his  race  were  sinners,  and  that  his  nature  inev 
itably  drove  him  into  sin. 

It  is  a  theory  of  some  that  sin  is  educational  ;  that 
it  springs  from  inexperience  and  ignorance  ;  is  the  first 
awkward  movement  of  a  nature  that  is  gradually  learn 
ing  to  move  with  grace  ;  that  it  tends  to  correct  itself, 
and  is  to  be  regarded  as  the  adolescence  of  the  soul, 
not  its  manhood.  Sin,  doubtless,  is  educational ;  but 
not  in  this  sense.  It  educates,  by  teaching  man  his  in 
ability  to  live  a  successful  life  in  his  own  strength  and 
wisdom  ;  it  educates,  by  communicating  humility  to  the 
remorseful  spirit  ;  it  educates,  by  preparing  the  soul  to 
seek  for,  and  admit,  the  help  which  God  is  always  wait 
ing  to  communicate.  But  in  all  other  respects,  there 


HUMAN   NATURE.  263 

is  nothing  strengthening  or  saving  in  the  experience  of 
sin.  On  the  contrary,  the  more  of  it,  the  longer  under 
its  sway,  the  more  debilitated  and  helpless  the  soul ! 
It  propagates  itself  like  a  poison  in  the  individual ;  it 
spreads  like  a  pestilence,  and  corrupts  the  whole  com 
munity.  Beginning  with  the  animal  part,  it  involves 
the  affections,  the  intellectual  nature  and  the  more  ma 
jestic  powers,  until  every  part  of  the  soul  is  in  its  toils 
Tribes  and  neighborhoods,  once  under  its  dominion, 
tend,  spite  of  the  progress  they  make  in  arts  and 
sciences,. and  of  the  greater  degree  of  refinement  which 
attends  their  vices,  only  to  a  maturer  and  more  subtile 
iniquity.  The  prudential  and  selfish  graces  which  an 
experienced  community  wraps  around  its  depravity, 
only  drapes  the  fatal  sickness  of  the  soul.  Like  the 
clear  atmosphere,  the  delicious  weather,  which  some 
times  accompanies  the  reign  of  pestilence,  like  the  rich 
flowers  and  beautiful  fruits  that  glow  beneath  the  do 
minion  of  the  treacherous  tropical  sun — education,  art, 
manners,  softness  and  grace,  not  seldom  mark  a  condi 
tion  of  society  out  of  which  faith,  hope  and  charity 
have  ebbed  away,  and  where  selfishness,  deceit  and 
treachery  have  taken  up  an  undisputed  possession.  It 
is  remarkable,  indeed,  how  the  senses  and  the  soul  were 
both  united  in  the  original  temptation.  It  was  not  a 
vulgar  bodily  appetite  that  allured  our  first  parents  to 
their  ruin.  Never  was  a  more  respectable,  a  more  in 
tellectual  temptation,  held  out  to  human  creatures.  It 
was  the  knowledge  of  good  and  evil,  that  grew  upon  the 
tree  whose  fruit  they  plucked  ;  and  what  nobler  form  of 
spiritual  weakness,  what  more  fascinating  and  lofty  kind 
of  sin  could  you  have  than  that  which  disobeys  God  for 


2G4  THE     RE-ADJUSTMENT    OF    FAITH. 

the  sake  of  being  more  like  him  ;  possessing  his  own 
attributes  and  sharing  his  moral  insight !  But  this  in 
dependence  of  God,  this  unwillingness  to  owe  our 
guidance  and  salvation  to  him  ;  this  reliance  upon  our 
own  intellects  and  wills — is  the  very  rebellion,  which, 
in  the  most  advanced  stages  of  civilization,  constantly 
returns.  Adam's  sin  is  the  sin  of  our  own  day  ;  be 
cause  it  is  the  very  sin  to  which  /mr  nature  prompts 
most  those  wJio  possess  it  in  its  finest  mould.  The 
pride  of  intellect,  the  pride  of  knowledge,  the  pride  of 
unbridled  speculation,  of  self-idolatry,  the  worship  of 
power,  genius,  art — of  any  thing  other  than,  and  sooner 
than,  the  Holy  God — this  is  the  form  which  the  de 
pravity  of  man  takes  in  our  day  and  amongst  ourselves, 
and  it  is  the  cause  of  a  large  part  of  the  moral  weak 
ness,  the  social  difficulty,  the  domestic  trouble,  and 
the  personal  misery,  of  our  generation. 

And  this  brings  us  to  the  new  creation  in  the  second 
Adam,  Christ.  "  For  as  in  Adam  all  die,  even  so  in 
Christ  shall  all  be  made  alive."  The  natural  man,  left 
to  himself,  falls  into  ruin.  His  powers  and  faculties  are 
incompetent  to  independence.  They  never  were  made 
for  that  ;  and  in  this  defeat  human  nature  does  not 
change,  it  merely  exhibits  its  quality,  its  original  native 
inability  to  resist  temptation  and  keep  the  law  of  God  in 
its  own  unassisted  strength  !  It  was  never  meant  to  do  it, 
and  it  does  not  do  it.  It  is  left  to  learn  this  peculiarity, 
or  rather  characteristic,  of  its  constitution,  by  experi 
ence.  It  is  necessary  to  its  future  destiny  that  it  should 
have  aspirations  for  independence,  should  have  a  certain 
confidence  in  itself,  should  have  an  eager  desire  for  test 
ing  its  own  attributes  and  capacities  ;  and  so,  as  we  leave 


HUMAN    NATURE.  265 

our  children  to  find  out  their  need  of  us  by  thinking 
they  can  get  along  without  us,  and  trying  it,  God 
leaves  men  to  think  they  can  live  on  their  own  wis 
dom,  and  be  a  law  to  themselves,  and  assert  their  own 
independent  being,  with  safety.  And  as  our  disobe 
dient  children  often  end  with  seeking  the  authority 
they  scorned,  acknowledging  the  folly  they  deemed 
better  than  our  wisdom,  and  thanking  the  painfid  disci 
pline  that  brings  them  to  their  senses,  so  the  race,  God's 
children,  from  time  to  time,  at  their  wit's  end,  stricken 
with  a  sense  of  orphanage,  invite  the  face  of  the  Father 
they  have  spurned,  confess  the  insufficiency  of  the  wis 
dom  they  have  leaned  upon,  and  cry  aloud  to  God  for 
intervention  and  salvation.  It  is  the  history  of  in 
dividuals  and  of  nations,  of  men  and  of  humanity. 
What  happens  to  all  men,  with  more  or  less  decisive 
experiences,  namely,  periodical  fits  of  humility,  ac 
companied  by  a  penitential  sense  of  remorse,  a  con 
sciousness  of  inadequacy  to  the  wants  of  their  own  na 
tures,  happens  at  times  to  masses  of  men  ;  seizes  na 
tions,  eras,  and  the  race.  It  is  not  that  the  want  of 
God's  spirit  and  guidance  is  any  greater  at  one  time 
than  another  ;  but  only  that  the  sense  of  this  want  is 
sometimes  heightened.  And,  under  this  sense,  it  be 
comes  evident  what  religion  is  ;  in  short,  that  without 
this  want,  there  would  be  no  occasion  of  religion,  and  no 
sense  of  religion,  and,  indeed,  no  such  thing  as  religion ; 
that  this  is  precisely  what  makes  religion  possible,  or 
necessary,  or  desirable  ;  namely,  that  man  is  framed 
and  constituted  to  want  God  as  much  as  a  watch  is 
made  to  want  its  key,  and  the  intelligent  mind  that 
turns  that  key.  The  watch,  supposing  it  conscious  of 
12 


2G6  THE    RE-ADJUSTMENT    OF    FAITH. 

itself,  would  not  find  this  out  till  it  ran  doivn,  and  man 
does  not  find  out  that  he  needs  God  till,  for  the  want  of 
him,  he  runs  down,  or,  in  the  language  of  theology, 
falls. 

You  may  ask,  if  you  will,  why  the  Creator  does  not 
supply  man  with  a  self-sustaining  power,  and  erect  him 
into  an  independent  sovereignty  from  the  outset.  I 
suppose  it  is  for  the  same  reason  that  the  watchmaker 
does  not  give  his  watches  the  power  of  winding  them 
selves  up — namely,  that  this  is  heyond  the  possibilities 
of  his  art.  I  suppose  that  God  cannot  create  heings  to 
have  spiritual  life,  independent  of  himself ;  that  it  is 
only  in  steadily  communicating  his  life  to  them,  and 
feeding  them  from  the  living  fountain,  that  they  can 
he  filled  with  immortality.  It  is  not  to  mend  a  defect, 
but  to  meet  an  eternal  want  in  our  nature,  that  God 
supplies  his  Holy  Spirit  through  his  Son.  The  work  of 
religion  is  not  an  unexpected  work  of  God's.  Our  need 
of  him  is  not  an  accident,  but  a  glorious  constitutional 
necessity.  The  discovery  of  our  incompetency  to  our 
selves  is  not  designed  as  a  mortification,  but  a  blessed 
revelation  of  our  sufficiency  in  him.  The  orphanage 
we  suffer  sends  us  in  search  of  a  Father  whom  we  find 
to  be  the  King  of  kings  ;  the  weakness  we  experience 
drives  us  to  a  refuge  that  is  omnipotent  ! 

If,  now,  I  am  asked,  whether  the  sense  of  God  and 
the  supply  of  the  Spirit  of  God  be  not  a  perfectly  free 
one,  every  man's  nature  opening,  if  he  will,  to  God,  as 
every  bay  in  the  coast  opens  to  the  ocean — if  the  vision 
of  God  be  not  universal,  every  man  being  opposite  to 
God,  as  every  eye  is  opposite  to  the  sun,  I  answer,  that 
while  this  is  true,  yet  it  is  in  accordance  with  all  the 


HUMAN    NATURE.  267 

analogies  of  nature  and  history,  that  every  principle  or 
truth  connected  with  human  welfare  should  embody 
itself  in  institutions,  define  itself  in  persons,  and  obey 
the  laws  of  our  social  and  historical  position,  before  it 
can  effectually  operate,  and  yjeld  its  virtues  to  the  race. 
Thus,  while  God  is  in  us  and  holds  perpetual  access  to 
our  private  souls,  he  is  also  out  of  us,  and  sustains  a 
public  relation  to  the  race,  which  is  only  to  be  ex 
pressed  by  external  revelations.  In  like  manner.,  while 
religion  is  a  secret  need  and  cry  of  the  individual  soul, 
it  must  become  a  combined  and  organized  want  of 
society,  and  receive  a  combined  and  organized  supply 
from  above,  before  the  social  conditions  are  fulfilled  by 
which  it  becomes  practically  saving  to  our  race  and 
ourselves.  It  is,  in  accordance  with  this  obvious  prin 
ciple  running  through  our  whole  condition,  that  God 
has  accompanied  the  history  of  man  by  revelations,  and 
embodied  in  positive  laws,  precepts,  and  sacraments, 
what  we  might  imagine,  prior  to  experience,  he  would 
have  left  to  the  immediate  communications  of  his  om 
nipresent  Spirit  in  living  contact  with  each  private 
soul. 

It  is,  I  know,  superficially  objected  to  external 
revelation,  that  it  confesses  imperfection  and  defeat  in 
the  original  creation.  But  it  is  only  such  imperfection 
as  belongs  to  the  watch  without  the  key,  the  key  being 
originally  designed  to  accompany  the  watch.  It  is  of 
a  piece  with  the  idea  that  God's  presence  in  the  soul  is 
denied,  or  the  sense  of  it  impaired,  by  acknowledging 
his  special  presence  in  his  Son  ;  a  thought  equivalent 
to  that  which  should  assert  that  an  elaborate  public 
aqueduct,  for  the  supply  of  a  metropolis,  denied  the 


2G8  THE    RE-ADJUSTMENT    OF    FAITH. 

existence  of  water  in  the  atmosphere,  or  water  under 
the  earth,  or  water  in  our  very  blood,  of  which  it  forms 
so  large  a  part.  Revelation  does  not  deny  God's  spirit 
in  the  soul,  or  in  the  world,  or  in  the  age  ;  it  only  gives 
us  a  formal  and  fixed  avenue  to,  and  connection  with, 
his  Spirit.  And  the  prophets,  apostles,  and  inspired 
agents,  who  have  connected  the  great  truths  of  religion 
with  times  and  places  and  persons,  making  them  di 
rect,  historical,  and  affecting,  capable  of  being  em 
bodied  in  records,  institutions  and  symbols,  and  united 
with  individualities,  have  met  and  satisfied  wants  in 
our  religious  aifections  and  capacities  that  could  not 
otherwise  be  supplied.  Christ,  the  central  figure 
among  these  inspired  persons,  who,  in  himself,  contains 
and  embodies  all  that  the  rest  have  labored  to  convey 
and  illustrate — having,  to  our  apprehension,  exhausted 
the  necessities  of  external  revelation — matching  nature 
itself  in  the  breadth  of  his  ministry,  and,  as  experience 
has  proved,  supplying  in  his  Church — the  river  that 
flowed  out  of  his  sublime  and  holy  life — just  what  the 
world  needed  to  finish  the  work  of  creation  half  done 
only  in  Adam — a  ruin  and  a  wreck,  as  it  seemed,  till 
completed  in  him — Christ  is  the  second  Adam,  in  that, 
while  all  men  die  in  the  first,  they  all  live  in  him.  In 
other  words,  Christianity  supplies  the  motives,  powers, 
attractions,  hopes,  inspirations,  by  which  alone  man  is 
able  to  live  the  life  of  God  in  the  soul,  to  live  with 
God  and  for  God,  and  in  the  successful  keeping  of  his 
commandments.  And  the  precise  channel  through 
which  this  vital  current  flows,  through  which  God 
practically  lends  himself  as  a  steady,  utilizable  force  to 
men,  is  the  Church,  which,  with  its  preached  word,  its 


HUMAN    NATURE.  269 

common  prayer,  its  sacraments  and  symbols,  its  holy 
days  and  instituted  faith,  is  the  chosen  and  only  prac 
tical  moans  for  the  continuous  and  systematic  supply 
of  man's  great  constitutional  need  of  heavenly  aid  and 
succor,  nurture  and  salvation.  The  importance  of  the 
Church  does  not  depend  upon  any  denial  of  God  out 
of  the  Church  ;  the  authority  of  revelation  does  not 
imply  any  want  of  authority  in  reason  or  native  con 
science.  Revealed  truth  is  not  opposed  to  natural  or 
intuitive  truth,  nor  institutional  religion  to  natural  re 
ligion.  'I'he  Church  is  the  externalization  of  man's 
perpetual  need  of  organized  and  systematic  relations 
with  God,  as  the  state  is  the  expression  and  the  form 
of  man's  need  of  instituted  and  external  government. 
And  the  rhetoric  which  disparages  the  Church,  or  pre 
dicts  its  decay.,  or  announces  its  demise,  is  a  shallow 
apology  for  the  true  philosophy  taught  alike  by  the 
nature  of  man  and  the  course  of  history. 

In  like  manner,  the  reluctance  which  the  minds  of 
individual  men  in  our  day  manifest  towards  the  guid 
ance,  the  help,  and  the  fellowship  of  the  Church,  which 
thins  the  ranks  of  professed  disciples,  confines  the  use 
of  the  Gospel  sacraments  to  the  few,  and  leaves  the  ad 
ministration  of  this  great  public  interest  to  the  hands 
of  its  professional  supporters,  is  a  reluctance  not  found 
ed  on  large,  or  high,  or  profound  views  of  the  subject. 
The  Church,  considered  in  the  light  in  which  I  have 
set  it,  is  not  an  object  for  superstitious  support  or  in 
credulous  sneers  ;  it  is  not  a  thing  of  the  past.  It  has 
a  deep  foundation  in  the  permanent  nature  and  wants 
of  man,  the  grandest  place  in  the  history  of  the  race, 
and  the  most  positive  necessity  in  the  existing  wants 


270  THE    RE-ADJUSTMENT    OF    FAITH. 

of  the  world.  In  this  light,  its  order,  its  ritual,  its  sym 
bols,  its  times  and  seasons,  acquire  a  dignity  such,  only 
a  thousand  times  greater,  as  is  communicated  to  the 
forms  and  technicalities  of  the  law  and  the  courts,  by  the 
awful  principle  of  justice  which  they  serve  and  enshrine. 
The  petulant  flippancy  which  can  only  srnile  or  sneer 
at  every  technicality  of  the  law,  betraying  its  own  ig 
norance  and  want  of  reflection,  not  the  emptiness  of  the 
subject,  may  carry  the  same  spirit  into  its  skeptical  in 
difference  to  religious  forms  and  usages,  opinions  and 
doctrines.  But  every  man  who  has  reflection*  and  in 
telligence  enough  to  know  how  much  the  welfare  and 
order  of  society  depend  upon  the  obstinacy  of  forms  in 
commerce,  in  medicine,  in  law,  in  politics,  in  the  me 
chanic  arts — for  which  no  other  reason  can  be  given 
than  that  they  protect  precious  interests — will  under 
stand  that  the  Church  stands,  in  every  New  Testament 
ordinance  and  usage,  for  vital  things,  which  seek  these 
embanking  usages  for  the  channel  through  which  to 
enrich  and  bless  and  sanctify  and  save  the  world. 

Uphold  the  Church,  which  upholds  you  !  Join  the 
Church,  which  joins  you  to  Christ  and  God  !  Be  not 
ashamed  nor  afraid  to  confess  your  urgent  need  of  the 
shelter  and  protection  of  an  external  institution,  a  re 
ligious  home,  which  perpetually  reminds  you  of  your 
obligations  to  God,  of  your  dependence  on  the  Holy 
Ghost,  of  your  life  in  Christ,  of  your  fellowship  with  the 
saints,  and  of  your  sonship  to  the  Almighty  Father  ! 

JUNE  4,  1859. 


IV. 

CHRIST. 


IV. 

CHRIST. 

SERMON  XVII. 

EXPECTATION    OF   CHRIST. 

(PREACHED  CHRISTMAS  EVE.) 
"  And  the  desire  of  all  nations  shall  come." — HAGGAI  ii.  7. 

WE  are  upon  the  eve  of  the  most  important  event 
nrhuman  history  !  To-morrow  is  our  Saviour's  birth 
day,  and  the  Christian  world  is  tuning  its  voice  to  join 
"  the  heavenly  host,  praising  God,  and  saying,  Glory  to 
God  in  the  highest,  and  on  earth  peace,  good  will  to 
ward  men  !  "  The  proper  service  of  to-day  is  not  con 
gratulation,  hut  expectation.  The  Saviour  is  not  yet 
born,  but  all  men  muse  in  their  hearts  of  his  coming. 
Let  us,  by  an  effort  of  the  imagination,  fling  ourselves 
back  of  Christ's  birth,  and  take  our  position  among 
those  who  waited  for  the  consolation  of  Israel.  To 
morrow  we  shall  join  those  who  welcome  God's  precious 
gift ;  to-night  let  us  spend  with  those  who  long  for  it. 

The  concluding  books  of  the  Old  Testament — short, 
convulsive  sobs  of  a  dying  dispensation — contain,  in 


274  THE    RE-ADJUSTMENT    OF    FAITH. 

their  broken  and  pathetic  eloquence,  many  gleams  of 
glorious  hope  and  splendid  prediction,  like  the  beautiful 
visions  that  cheer  the  death -bed  of  the  sad  and  weary. 
"  Faithful  among  the  faithless/'  the  prophets  of  a  na 
tion,  wearied  and  discouraged  with  ages  of  baffled  hope, 
still  held  on  to  the  promise.  The  word  that  God  had 
covenanted  with  the  Israelites,  when  they  came  out  of 
Egypt,  they  still  expected  him  to  fulfil ;  and  Haggai, 
one  of  the  last  and  most  eloquent  of  them  all,  in  the 
midst  of  the  severest  rebukes  and  the  most  anxious  fore 
bodings,  is  still  true  to  his  national  convictions,  and  ex 
claims,  fe  Fear  ye  not,  for  thus  saith  the  Lord  of  hosts  ; 
Yet  once,  it  is  a  little  while,  and  I  will  shake  the 
heavens,  and  the  earth,  and  the  sea,  and  the  dry  land. 
And  I  will  shake  all  nations,  and  the  desire  of  all  na<- 
tions  shall  come."  True,  several  hundred  years  elapsed, 
in  which  prophecy  was  dumb — years  of  long  and  sor 
rowful  waiting — after  Haggai,  and  later  still,  Zechariah 
and  Malachi,  had  raised  their  expectant  voices,  and  the 
desire  of  all  nations  was  still  an  object  of  hope.  That 
hope,  however,  had  at  length  spread  from  the  peculiar 
people  to  Gentile  races.  The  interval  between  the  con 
clusion  of  the  prophecies  of  the  Old  Testament  and  the 
birth  of  Christ,  is  occupied  by  the  best  days  of  Greek 
and  Roman  history  and  literature,  and  it  is  not  difficult 
to  trace  the  influence  of  the  Jewish  superstitions,  as 
they  were  then  deemed,  upon  the  richest  and  noblest 
minds  of  classic  antiquity.  Socrates  and  Plato,  and 
still  more  as  the  actual  era  of  our  Saviour  approached, 
Cicero  and  Virgil,  begin  to  use  almost  inspired  lan 
guage  in  regard  to  the  coining  of  a  supernatural  mes 
senger  to  clear  up  the  clouded  and  baffled  intelligence 


EXPECTATION    OF    CHRIST.  275 

of  humanity.  The  nations,  although  only  in  the  person 
of  their  highest  and  most  gifted  minds  and  hearts,  unite 
in  a  common  desire  and  expectation  of  light  and  deliv 
erance  from  above. 

But  it  is  hardly  necessary  to  look  to  supernatural 
prophecy,  or  even  to  the  predictions  of  sensitive  and 
prescient  genius,  for  the  origin  of  the  hopes  finally 
gratified  in  Christ's  birth.  Humanity  contains  in  its 
very  constitution  a  prediction  of  the  Messiah.  The 
first  man,  which  is  Adam,  foreshadows  the  second  man, 
which  is  the  Lord  from  Heaven.  Human  nature  is 
everywhere  the  same — a  boundless,  half-blind,  half-see 
ing  capacity,  in  pursuit  of  an  ideal.  It  contains  within 
itself  a  longing  to  rise  above  itself ;  an  impatience  of 
the  material  limits  of  its  prison-house  ;  a  consciousness 
of  powers  which  here  have  no  adequate  field  ;  a  sense 
of  justice  which  is  perpetually  outraged  by  the  actual 
condition  of  affairs  ;  a  love  of  consistency,  of  order, 
of  beginning,  middle  and  end,  which  is  violated  by  this 
chaotic  and  defeated  life  of  man. 

What  is  the  meaning  of  this  grand  exception  to  the 
whole  analogy  of  nature  ?  of  this  anomaly  called  man  ? 
Every  other  creature  on  the  planet  has  its  natural  and 
perfect  destiny.  The  bird  has  no  wing  which  looks  in 
vain  for  an  element  to  move  in  ;  the  beast  no  appetite 
that  seeks  unsuccessfully  its  food.  Disorder  and  confu 
sion  do  not  shock  the  harmonious  instincts  of  the  ani 
mal  creation.  No  superfluous  powers  baffle  the  natu 
ralist  as  he  surveys  the  structure  of  insect  or  plant. 
Each  is  adequate  to  its  place,  and  its  place  is  adequate 
to  each.  The  flowers  must  die,  Taut  they  do  not  trem 
ble  at  the  frost  that  cuts  off  their  beauty  ;  and  though 


276  THE    RE-ADJUSTMENT    OF    FAITH. 

the  hare  flies  from  the  tiger's  whelp  that  makes  him  its 
prey,  yet  he  flies  from  an  instinct  of  self-preservation, 
not  from  the  fear  of  death,  of  which  he  knows  nothing. 
Man  alone  is  burdened  with  faculties  larger  than  his 
sphere  ;  hopes  that  transcend  his  opportunities  ;  thirsts 
that  no  river  nor  ocean  can  slake.  Man  alone  asks  ques 
tions  that  nature  will  not  answer,  shudders  with  fears 
against  which  he  cannot  provide,  sees  himself  exposed 
to  a  fate  that  he  contemplates  with  horror  yet  cannot 
escape. 

Imagine,  my  brethren,  this  human  heart  of  ours, 
emancipated  as  it  now  is  by  Christianity  from  its  per 
manent  alliance  with  the  doomed  flesh,  from  its  short 
date  of  mortal  life,  and  from  its  ignorance  of  its  destiny 
— relieved  of  the  magical,  purposeless,  obscure,  and  de 
formed  conception  of  itself,  gathered  from  nature's  con 
fused  and  uncertain  teachings — imagine  this  fancy  that 
now  wanders  through  eternity,  this  conscience  that  ex 
pects  for  all  defeats  of  justice  a  final  and  perfect  tribu 
nal,  these  affections  that  glory  in  their  imperishable 
faithfulness — imagine  man  as  Christianity  has  thus 
made  him,  remanded  to  his  old  estate  of  doubt  and 
darkness,  reinclosed  in  heathen  or  Jewish  ignorance, 
sent  back  into  the  twilight  of  nature,  and  again  beating 
at  the  bars  of  his  prison-house,  and  longing  for  a  keeper 
that  would  never  appear  !  Alas  !  the  horror  of  that 
change  cannot  be  estimated  !  And  yet,  in  that  de 
stroying  and  inexplicable  confinement,  lay  our  race  for 
four  thousand  years  !  Does  not  what  we  know  of  our 
selves  tell  us  that  cries  of  agony,  anticipations  full  of 
yearning,  prophecies  that  helped  on  their  own  fulfil 
ment,  desires  that  could  not  be  repressed,  convulsed  the 


EXPECTATION    OF    CHRIST.  277 

heart  of  our  common  humanity,  in  that  long  era  when, 
with  one  exception,  the  nations  were  formally  unowned 
of  God,  and  without  exception,  were  uncertain,  or  hope 
less,  of  immortality  ?  How  often  must  the  noble  in 
tellect,  staggering  under  the  dreadful  problem  of  life, 
have  turned  its  eye  to  heaven,  with  imploring  but  un 
answered  look  ?  How  many  desperate  hours  must 
grief  have  spent  in  anticipating  the  havoc  which  the 
funeral  pyre  would  make  of  its  best  beloved  and  dying 
kindred  ?  Answer  me,  ye  silent  stars  !  speak  out, 
dumb  heavens  !  why  do  I  live  beneath  your  constant 
courses,  to  dread  the  day  I  shall  see  ye  no  more  ?  Ye 
buried  nations — generations  that  form  the  mould  I 
tread — tell  me  wha.t  ye  know,  or  if  ye  know  nothing,  in 
the  graves  ye  fill  !  Ye  winds  that  visit  the  distant 
boundaries  of  the  earth,  have  ye  nowhere  seen  a  region 
where  men  live  forever  ?  Waves,  is  there  no  port  ye 
ever  make,  where  man  can  find  his  Maker,  or  know  his 
being's  aim  and  object  ?  Ye  lightnings,  pierce  me 
with  your  bolts,  or  else  tell  me,  where  is  the  hand  that 
hurled  ye  down  ?  Oh,  cruel  elements  !  Is  there  no 
prayer  can  soften  your  obdurate  hearts,  no  tears  that 
can  melt  your  stony  silence  ? 

Such  questions  did  not  reach  the  ear  of  God  in  vain, 
though  Nature  had  no  answer  for  them. 

But  let  us  not  suppose  that  longings  like  these  were 
universal ;  else  had  they  not  been  so  long  unsatisfied. 
In  estimating  the  spiritual  sensibility  and  conscious 
destitution  of  the  race  in  ages  prior  to  our  Saviour's 
birth,  an  important  distinction  is  to  be  observed  and 
maintained  between  men  and  man;  between  the  yearn 
ings  and  aspirations  of  humanity  in  her  sweetest  and 


278  THE    RE-ADJUSTMENT    OF    FAITH. 

ripest  specimens,  and  the  apathy  and  carelessness  which 
the  great  mass  of  human  beings  showed  to  the  very 
questions  so  profoundly  and  sadly  felt  in  great  and 
bursting  hearts.  Had  there  been  a  universal  desire  for 
light  from  heaven,  a  conscious  and  urgent  need  of  a 
Messenger  from  God,  he  would,  we  may  be  sure,  have 
come  ages  before  the  Christian  era.  But  human  nature 
in  the  mass,  though  unchangeable  in  its  elements  and 
capacities,  and  pregnant  with  latent  truth,  is  slow  in  its 
development,  slow  to  find  out  its  own  wants,  capable  of 
resting  long  satisfied  in  its  earthly  estate,  content  to 
feed  on  its  selfish  instincts  and  to  quench  its  higher  af 
fections.  It  was  to  allow  it  time  to  discover  its  own  in 
herent  faculties,  to  feel  the  pressure  of  its  nobler  wants, 
the  necessities  of  reason,  conscience  and  affection,  that 
the  gracious  light  of  Revelation  was  withheld,  and  the 
Saviour  reserved  so  long.  For  man  is  educated  by  want. 
That  is  the  great  method  of  Divine  Providence.  The  sup 
ply  is  not  furnished  until  it  is  sought,  and  earnestly 
sought ;  and  it  will  not  be  sought  until  the  want  is  serious 
ly  felt.  Had  man  not  been  moved  by  hunger,  he  would 
have  been  as  slothful  as  the  grub  that  nestles  in  the  heart 
of  its  winter's  food.  Want  has  built  the  world  ;  raised 
its  shelters,  cultivated  its  fields,  cleared  its  forests  of  wild 
beasts,  bridged  its  rivers  and  oceans,  fixed  the  place  of 
its  stars,  and  given  civilization,  luxury  and  peace  to  the 
world.  Want  alone  it  was  that  must  break  the  silence 
of  the  mute  heavens,  and  bring  God's  word  to  the  ear 
of  the  hungering  soul ;  that  must  unbar  the  grave,  and 
let  man's  spirit  forth  on  its  immortal  pathway.  Four 
thousand  years  did  not  furnish  too  long  a  time  to  ex 
haust  humanity's  ways  and  means  of  contenting  herself 


EXPECTATION    OF    CHRIST.  279 

as  a  creature  of  time.  She  must  needs  try  every  ex 
periment  of  living  without  a  supernatural  knowledge  of 
God  before  she  could  ask  that  boon  from  heaven,  must 
needs  eke  out  her  destitution  with  every  earth-born  re 
source — and  her  resources  were  many — must  needs  make 
a  full  and  thorough  use  of  all  that  human  wit  could  in 
vent,  a  careful  and  various  trial  of  all  the  numerous 
theories  and  plans  of  wisdom  and  philosophy  that  her 
unaided  genius  could  propose,  before,  with  any  general 
concurrence,  she  would  begin  to  cry  aloud  for  light  from 
above  !  That  hour  arrived,  was  the  fulness  of  the 
times — the  times  for  which  Divine  mercy  was  waiting. 
The  moment  Christ  should  be  the  desire  of  all  nations, 
he  would  come.  We  might  be  sure  he  lingered  in  the 
bosom  of  God  for  no  other  reason  than  because  the  world 
had  no  room  for  him  in  the  heart  he  yearned  to  occupy 
and  save. 

Meanwhile,  his  withholding  was  the  moral  education 
of  the  world.  Christ,  promised,  did  for  the  Israelites 
what  Christ,  given,  has  done  for  us.  "I  would  not  ye 
should  be  ignorant,"  says  Paul,  in  a  most  striking  pas 
sage  in  the  Corinthians,1  "  how  that  all  our  fathers 
were  under  the  cloud  and  all  passed  through  the  sea  ; 
and  were  all  baptized  unto  Moses  in  the  cloud  and  in 
the  sea  ;  and  did  all  eat  the  same  spiritual  meat  and 
did  all  drink  the  same  spiritual  drink  (as  we)  ;  for  they 
drank  of  that  spiritual  rock  that  followed  them — and 
that  rock  was  Christ."  The  promise  of  the  Messiah — 
an  indefinite,  obscure,  yet  exciting  hope — took  hold  of 
the  imagination  and  heart  of  the  Jewish  people,  more 

1  1  Cor.  x.  1. 


280  THE   RE-ADJUSTMENT   OF   FAITH. 

than  the  actual  bestowmcnt  of  the  Saviour  would  have 
done  at  any  period  preceding  his  actual  appearing.  For 
the  expectation  of  him  adapted  itself,  through  the  chang 
ing  and  growing  conceptions  of  the  Messiah  which  it  al 
lowed,  to  their  successive  wants.  They  would  have 
rejected  with  universal  disgust  the  very  Messiah  whose 
promise,  clothed  in  their  own  fond  ideas,  they  cherished 
so  tenderly.  Nay,  when  he  did  really  come,  with  the 
exception  of  a  glorious  minority,  they  knew  him  not, 
but  put  him  to  a  violent  death  ;  and  numerous  de 
scendants  of  theirs  still  wait,  in  a  sublime  though  melan 
choly  constancy,  the  birth  of  that  Messiah  whom  for 
eighteen  centuries  and  a  half  the  world  has  recognized. 
Yet  who  can  fail  to  see  the  dignity  and  culture  which 
the  expectation  of  Christ  gave  to  the  Hebrew  race  ?  It 
led  their  thoughts  forth  into  the  future  ;  gave  them  a 
noble  discontent  with  the  present  ;  fed  the  sacred  fires 
of  poetry  in  their  hearts  ;  wove  a  charm  of  sentiment, 
aspiration  and  longing  into  their  national  character, 
which  makes  their  literature  the  glory  of  their  age  and 
the  food  of  all  time.  Compared  with  the  Jew,  how  cold 
and  passionless,  how  wanting  in  true  human  tenderness 
and  nearness  to  our  hearts,  is  the  Gentile  of  the  most 
cultivated  races — the  Greek  or  the  Roman  ! 

Man  becomes  great,  interesting,  human,  only  as  he 
is  a  hoper  ;  as  he  cherishes  an  ideal,  longs  for  a  future, 
pursues  the  desire  of  all  nations.  The  world,  satis 
fied  with  itself,  engrossed  in  the  present,  content  with 
its  natural  boundaries,  is  in  its  childhood.  That  is 
precisely  the  distinction  of  the  child,  that  he  has  no 
future,  that  his  longings  and  desires  terminate  in  what 
is  near,  visible  and  attainable.  And  with  all  their 


EXPECTATION   OF    CHRIST.  281 

culture,  refinement  and  luxury,  the  great  masses  in  the 
heathen  and  classic  world — who  entertained  none  of  our 
modern  and  Christian  conceptions  of  progress,  lived  for 
no  future,  and  left  the  coming  generations  to  provide  for 
themselves — were  in  a  childhood.  The  rude  Goths  and 
Yaridals,  with  their  wild  northern  superstitions,  their 
dark  prophecies  and  poetry,  their  crude  predictions  of  a 
better  future,  were  infinitely  more  human,  mightier  and 
more  pregnant  with  promise  to  the  destinies  of  the  race, 
than  those  refined,  self-satisfied,  earth-born  and  time- 
worshipping  races  in  the  Koman  Empire,  which  finally 
fell  before  their  fierce  but  earnest  superstitions. 

There  was  no  nation  on  the  earth  to  whom  Christ 
could  have  been  sent,  with  any  advantage,  at  the  remote 
period  of  his  actual  coming,,  except  the  Jews.  They  in 
deed,  crucified  him — but  not  until  they  had  heard  his 
message  and  received  it  deep  into  hearts  fully  competent 
to  communicate  it.  The  longings,  prophecies,  predic 
tions  of  ages,  had  not  been  all  in  vain.  A  few  hearts  in 
Judea  were  prepared,  by  that  long  discipline  of  centu 
ries,  to  feel  the  greatness  and  preciousness  of  the  gift 
God  was  bestowing  ;  enough  to  begin  the  glorious  circle 
which  has  now  spread  so  fast  and  so  far  as  to  include 
our  then  unknown  continent,  our  then  unforeseen  gen 
erations.  Murderous  and  cruel  as  the  Jews  were,  there 
was  no  country  in  the  world  but  Palestine  where  Jesus 
could  then  have  found  even  twelve  disciples — no  city 
but  Jerusalem  that  would  have  allowed  him  to  teach  a 
year  in  its  streets.  God  did  not  withhold  his  Son  one 
moment  from  a  world  that  would  welcome  him.  He 
barely  got  a  hearing,  after  ages  of  expectation  had  been 


282  THE    RE-ADJUSTMENT    OF    FAITH. 

preparing  for  him.    He  came  the  first  moment  his  com 
ing  could  have  been  recognized. 

And  my  brethren,  just  what  delayed  his  first  com 
ing,  just  what  confined  his  mission  to  the  Jews,  when 
splendid  and  cultivated  Gentile  nations  lay  all  around 
them,  delays  his  progress  and  postpones  his  triumphs 
now  .that  he  is  in  the  world.  It  took  ages  to  prepare 
for  his  appearing  ;  it  has  taken  ages  to  prepare  for  his 
installation.  He  came  only  to  the  nation  that,  through 
providential  helps,  had  cherished  a  secret  longing  and 
desire  for  him — and  alas  1  He  found  in  them  only  a 
faint,  indefinite  idea  of  what  they  wanted.  Yet  hap 
pily  it  was  enough  to  plant  his  foot  upon.  He  gained 
the  Apostles  at  least.  While  the  enthusiasm  of  his 
chosen  disciples  survived,  the  latent  want  in  man  of 
spiritual  truth,  the  want  of  a  mediator  with  God,  and  a 
guide  to  heaven,  of  an  assurance  of  forgiveness  on  re 
pentance  and  newness  of  life,  of  a  life-plan  and  eternal 
goal,  was  developed  with  extraordinary  zeal  and  success. 
The  Missionary  labors  of  the  Apostles  were  abundantly 
prospered.  Christ's  Gospel  was  welcomed  in  its  new 
ness  of  spirit  and  wonderful  works,  with  astonishing 
rapidity.  But  in  a  few  centuries  it  exhausted  the 
latent  longing,  the  secret  expectation  and  desire  which 
had  slowly  accumulated  in  the  world — and  began  to 
make  its  way,  more  by  authority  and  force  than  by 
adaptation,  or  supply  for  an  existing  and  painful  want. 
At  length  if  has  become  a  familiar  and  uninteresting 
story.  The  general  truths  with  which  it  was  laden, 
man's  immortality,  God's  fatherhood,  have  become  the 
possession  of  the  common  intellect  and  affections  of  the 
world — and  while  their  influence  is  vast,  considered  only 


EXPECTATION    OF    CHRIST.  283 

as  intellectual  principles,  in  extending  and  clearing  up 
the  general  horizon  of  human  thought,  solving  the 
riddle  and  lightening  the  burden  of  the  mystery  of  life, 
yet  they  act  on  the  people  of  this  generation  much  as 
the  great  truths  of  the  Copernican  system  do  upon  the 
geography  and  commerce  of  the  world,  with  immense 
practical  effect,  yet  without  calling  forth  much  direct 
attention,  or  asking  individual  and  conscious  accept 
ance. 

And  this  is  a  state  of  things  in  which  Christ's  birth 
in  its  spiritual  sense  is  constantly  hindered  and  post 
poned  ;  for  it  ever  waits  upon  expectation  and  desire  ; 
his  coming  follows  upon  the  longing  for  him.  We  think 
perhaps  that  Christ  is  wholly  come  !  Oh,  no  !  my 
brethren,  his  revelation,  his  spirit,  his  message  to  the 
world,  comes  not  yet  fully  to  the  birth.  Born  indeed  in 
the  flesh,  he  is  not  yet  born  into  the  world  in  the  spirit. 
The  deepest,  richest  part  of  his  Gospel  is  still  hid  !  To 
what  intent  is  he  in  the  world,  if  the  world  knows  him 
not  ?  Is  he  not  much  as  though  he  had  never  been,  to 
those  who  do  not  seek  him  and  learn  of  him  ?  Is  not 
Christ  as  much  a  mystery,  a  name,  a  superstition,  to 
thousands  dwelling  in  the  very  heart  of  Christendom, 
as  though  he  were  hid  1800  years  deep  in  the  future, 
instead  of  being  1800  years  old  in  the  knowledge  of  the 
past  ?  How  do  we,  who  continue  indifferent  to  his 
guidance,  materially  differ  from  those  who  had  no 
Saviour  to  turn  to  ? 

We  perhaps  flatter  ourselves  that  if  this  were  the 
eve  of  Christ's  birth,  if  to-morrow  were  the  identical  day 
in  which  Christ  was  to  be  born  in  Bethlehem,  we  should 
be  among  those  eagerly  expecting  him  ;  among  those 


284  THE    RE-ADJUSTMENT    OF    FAITH. 

preparing  to  carry  gifts  to  his  manger  ;  certainly  not 
among  those  who  denied  his  weary  mother  a  place  in 
the  inn,  and  who  afterward  fell  into  Herod's  employ 
and  sought  the  young  child's  life  !  Yet  to-day  is  as 
truly  the  eve  of  Christ's  birth  as  though  eighteen  cen 
turies  rolled  back  and  placed  us  on  the  hills  of  Judea, 
among  the  shepherds  tending  their  flocks  by  night,  to 
whom  the  angels  sang  the  first  Christmas  carol.  The 
spiritual  Christ  is  waiting  to  be  born  into  the  heart  of 
the  world,  and  there  is  no  room  for  him  there.  Human 
ity  does  not  yet  long  for  him  ;  does  not  yet  expect  him, 
would  not  yet  know  him.  For  them,  he  still  sleeps  in 
his  mother's  bosom,  an  unborn  babe  ;  and  she,  an  un 
known  traveller,  is  turned  from  the  door.  Christ  still 
lacks  a  birth-place,  and  Joseph  and  Mary  in  vain 
appeal  for  a  becoming  shelter  ! 

We  wonder  that  Christ  was  withheld  so  long  from 
the  world  ;  why  do  we  not  wonder  rather  that  he  is 
still  withheld  ?  What  matters  it  that  his  sacred  .feet 
have  pressed  our  soil,  his  holy  visage  fallen  on  the 
eyes  of  our  ancestors,  if  his  mind  and  temper,  the  real 
objects  of  his  mission,  his  blessed  doctrines  and  prom 
ises,  have  not  yet  taken  on  a  visible  shape  and  won  the 
reverence  and  love  of  the  world  he  came  to  save  ?  St. 
Paul  complains  in  effect  that  our  Saviour  still  hangs 
upon  the  cross.  And  there  he  will  hang,  bleeding  ;ind 
in  agony,  until  the  world  ceases  from  the  murderous 
dispositions  which  originally  put  him  there  !  We,  too, 
complain  that  Christ  is  not  yet  born  ;  that  the  nations 
still  sit  in  heathen  darkness,  not  even  expecting  the 
Messiah,  or  else  only  in  half-intellectual  Jewish  long 
ing,  grieved  and  sad  that  he  does  not  come.  Oh  1 


EXPECTATION    OF    CHRIST.  285 

were  lie  yet  to  come  in  the  flesh,  might  we  not  have  a 
less  heavy  heart,  than  hecomes  us,  when  now  it  is  only 
his  spiritual  birth  into  the  world  that  we  can  hope  for  ? 
For  what  triumphs  of  peace  and  purity,  of  brotherly 
love  and  truth  and  happiness,  should  we  not  associate 
with  his  personal  appearing  ?  We  might  naturally 
enough  expect  that  glorious  day  to  be  the  beginning 
of  an  all-triumphant  era.  But  Christ  has  come  in  the 
flesh.  Eighteen  centuries  have  celebrated  that  wonder 
ful  event,  and  the  world  still  gropes  on  in  half-heathen 
ignorance  and  indifference — believing  in  immortality, 
and  living  only  for  the  present — calling  men  their 
brethren,  and  treating  them  like  thieves  and  robbers — 
praising  the  Prince  of  peace,  and  making  war  in  Christ's 
name — emblazoning  his  precepts  in  gold,  and  pro 
claiming  his  promises  in  temples  more  precious  than 
Solomon's,  yet  breaking  the  commandments  with  their 
daily  bread,  and  grieving  his  Spirit  with  every  breath 
they  draw.  What  have  we  to  comfort  us  under  such 
a  disappointment  ?  Christ  born !  and  the  world 
neither  glad  nor  pious  ?  Christ  is  not  born,  then  ! 
The  salvation  of  the  world  awaits  his  spiritual  coming. 
He  must  come  in  the  proper  understanding  of  his  char 
acter  ;  he  must  come  in  the  actual  love  of  his  spirit ; 
he  must  come  as  the  accepted  guide  and  orderer  of 
society  ;  must  come  in  spirit  and  in  truth,  before  his 
birth  will  indeed  have  been  accomplished  !  Now  he  is 
hid,  not  indeed  in  his  mother's  heart,  but  in  the  womb 
of  superstition  and  worldly  misconception  ;  in  the  in 
difference  and  apathy  of  society.  Is  it  Christ  whom 
the  Catholic  world  expects  to-day,  upon  its  tapestried 
altars,  and  in  its  perfumed  temples  ?  Is  the  bedizened 


286  THE    RE-ADJUSTMENT    OF    FAITH. 

doll,  the  sacred  bambino,  who  in  Home  walks  in  stately 
procession,  with  all  the  homage  that  silken  robes  and 
mitred  bishops  and  the  triple-crowned  pope  can  be 
stow,  the  symbol  of  that  Jesus,  who  is,  or  ought  to  be, 
the  desire  of  all  nations  ?  Is  it  Christ  whom  the 
Protestant  world  expects  to-day  in  its  theological  as 
semblies  ;  the  second  person  in  the  Trinity,  God,  the 
fulfilment  of  Mosaic  prophecies,  the  antitype  of  Adam  ? 
Is  it  Christ  whom  the  liberal  school  of  thinkers  expects 
to-day  in  its  rational  and  intelligent  congregations — 
the  model  man,  the  excellent  example,  the  exalted 
Saviour  ?  Alas  !  neither  ecclesiastical  mummeries,  nor 
theological  formulas,  nor  sensible  opinions,  can  bring 
Jesus  Christ  to  the  birth.  He  seeks  some  other  Beth 
lehem  than  these  to  be  born  in.  The  pious  lloiuanist, 
the  conscientious  Puritan,  the  pure  but  cold  worshipper 
of  reason,  have  each  and  all  seen  him  in  their  private 
vigils,  though  he  comes  not  to  any  class,  and  knows  no 
sect  or  order.  But  he  is  born  wherever  love  unfeigned 
is  found  ;  born  into  every  heart  that  sincerely  and 
tenderly  suffers  and  labors  for  humanity  ;  born  in  every 
peacemaker's  spirit ;  born  in  every  soul  that  rises  above 
the  power  of  selfishness  and  worldly  greed,  and  uses  its 
means  and  powers  to  promote  the  good  of  mankind  ; 
born  where  humility,  gentleness,  purity  of  body  and 
soul,  trust  and  submission,  faith,  hope  and  charity  are 
seen  to  dwell. 

But  who  can  hope  to  see  Christ,  or  to  know  him,  to 
morrow,  who  can  look  upon  the  gentle  lineaments  of  that 
holy  babe  as  he  sleeps  in  Mary's  bosom,  who  does  not 
expect  him  to-day  ?  Bethlehem  did  not  expect  him, 
and  she  did  not  hear  the  angels'  song  that  sent  the 


EXPECTATION    OF    CHRIST.  287 

shepherds  alone  to  his  manger.  We  shall  none  of  us 
ever  see  Christ,  till  we  strongly  desire  him.  Would 
we  make  a  Bethlehem  in  our  hearts,  we  must  see  to  it 
that  they  are  not,  instead  of  that  humble  place,  the 
noisy  cities  of  worldly  care  and  covetousness.  While 
we  allow  them  to  be  filled  with  strangers,  Mary  will 
find  no  room  there.  Christ  was  born  in  a  manger  ; 
rude  walls  and  ill-furnished  accommodations  met  his 
infant  eyes.  The  soul  must  know  itself  to  be  a  manger 
— a  needy,  ill-supplied,  homely  and  unfurnished  spot — 
before  Christ  will  be  welcomed  to  a  birth-place  within 
it.  Yes  !  to  drop  all  figure,  Christ  comes  only  to  the 
want  of  the  soul.  We  shall  know  him,  love  him,  feel 
his  saving  power,  the  glory  and  the  blessedness  of  his 
birth  in  our  souls,  only  when  we  heartily  desire  him  ; 
when  all  we  have,  seems  poor ;  and  all  we  are,  weak  ; 
and  all  we  hope,  uncertain  and  uninviting.  Then  when, 
with  eager  expectation,  with  sincere  longing,  with  soul- 
wrung  desire,  like  unto  that  with  which  the  ancient 
handmaids  and-  seers  of  Judea  waited  for  the  consolation 
of  Israel,  we  prepare  our  hearts  for  our  Saviour,  he 
will  come  in  the  sweetness  and  beauty  of  his  innocency 
— aye,  in  the  power  and  plenitude  of  his  truth — and 
make  every  woman  another  Mary,  every  man  another 
Joseph,  every  house  another  Bethlehem ;  and  new 
Annas  shall  prophesy  and  speak  of  him  to  all  that 
look  for  redemption  in  Israel,  and  new  Simeons  bless 
God  and  say,  "  Lord,  now  lettest  thou  thy  servant  de 
part  in  peace,  according  to  thy  word,  for  mine  eyes 
have  seen  thy  salvation/' 

DECEMBER  24,  1854. 


SERMON  XVIII. 

THE   PREDESTINATION  OF  THE  SOUL   TO   CONFORMITY   TO 
CHRIST'S  IMAGE. 

A    NEW   TEAR'S    SERMON. 

"  And  we  know  that  all  things  work  together  for  good  to  them  that  love 
God,  to  them  who  are  the  called  according  to  his  purpose." 

"For  whom  he  did  foreknow,  he  also  did  predestinate  to  be  conformed  to 
the  image  of  his  Son,  that  he  might  be  the  first-born  among  many 
brethren." — ROMANS  viii.  28,  29. 

How  glorious  are  the  doctrines  of  the  New  Testa 
ment — even  those  most  associated  with  the  narrowness 
and  sourness  of  temporary  creeds — when  we  liherate 
them  from  the  fetters  which  deform  their  limbs  and 
distort  their  features  !  The  foreknowledge  and  predes 
tination  of  God,  the  election  and  justification  of  the 
Gospel,  have  become  so  sadly  connected  with  the  par 
tial  and  selfish  conceptions  of  sectarists,  that  we  hear 
the  very  words  with  a  kind  of  shrinking  and  distress,  as 
if  they  foreboded  us  no  good,  and  heralded  some  forbid 
ding  and  exclusive  theory  of  salvation.  Yet  we  do  the 
Almighty  goodness  gross  injustice,  and  the  Gospel 
wrong,  by  all  such  apprehensions.  It  was  in  opposition 
to  the  narrow  and  exclusive  hopes  of  the  Jews,  in  cor 
rection  of  the  partial  and  selfish  notions  of  a  limited 


PREDESTINATION    OF    THE    SOUL.  289 

compassion  and  arbitrary  preference  on  the  part  of  God, 
that  the  doctrines  of  election,  predestination,  and  fore 
knowledge  were  originally  taught.  It  was  in  behalf  of 
the  Gentiles — that  is,  of  all  who  were  not  Jews — in 
other  words,  of  mankind  in  general — that  the  apostle 
labored  to  prove  that  God  had  foreknown,  predestined, 
and  elected  them  to  salvation  by  Christ.  The  whole 
import  of  the  apostolic  teaching  is,  that  the  Jews  were 
a  peculiar  people,  and  the  possessors  of  exclusive  privi 
leges,  only  temporarily,  and  with  reference  to  the  service 
they  were  ultimately  to  render  the  whole  race  ;  that 
God  has  no  favorites,  no  plans  or  purposes  which  do 
not  comprehend  his  whole  family  in  heaven  and  earth ; 
that  he  designed  from  the  very  outset  to  raise  up  his 
Son  as  a  universal  Saviour  ;  made  man  to  be  saved,  and 
predestined  him  to  be  conformed  to  the  image  of  his 
Son,  that  Jesus  might  be  the  first-born  among  many 
brethren — that  is,  that  all  men  might  finally  resemble 
him  ! 

Do  I  not  rightly  say  that  it  is  a  glorious  doctrine, 
that  God  will  have  all  men  to  be  saved,  and  has  predes 
tined  them  to  be  conformed  to  the  image  of  his  Son  ? 
Is  it  not  a  thought  full  of  encouragement  and  inspira 
tion,  that  God  has  fashioned  us  with  powers  like  our 
Master's,  to  know,  and  love,  and  serve  him,  and  that 
he  expects  of  us  a  life  like  our  Saviour's  ?  I  know 
very  well  the  coarse  and  sensual  interpretation  which 
such  a  generous  statement  admits  of,  and  how  eagerly 
those  unconformed  in  purpose  or  mind  to  Christ's  im 
age,  snatch  at  a  doctrine  which  seems  to  throw  the  re 
sponsibility  of  our  eternal  well-being  upon  God.  and 
relieves  man  of  the  obligation  of  personal  fidelity  and 
13 


290  THE    RE-ADJUSTMENT    OF    FAITH. 

actual  obedience.  But  this  is  no  part  of  the  New  Tes 
tament  teaching.  What  God  wills  is,  that  our  hearts 
and  minds  shall  be  conformed  to  Christ's  ;  that  is  the 
salvation  he  offers  and  promises.  So  long  as  we  bear 
not  our  Lord's  image,  we  have  not,  and  cannot  have, 
the  salvation  of  God  ;  for  that  is  his  salvation.  If  we 
be  thinking  about  some  external  deliverance,  some  sen 
sual  happiness,  some  carnal  advantage,  resulting  from 
the  passage  of  time  or  the  event  of  death,  we  are  wast 
ing  our  thoughts  upon  matters  wholly  foreign  to  the 
ideas  of  the  apostle.  His  doctrine  is,  that  God  loves 
sinners  as  well  as  saints  ;  Gentiles  as  well  as  Jews  ; 
and  that  he  has  predestined  them  all  to  be  conformed 
to  the  image  of  his  Son.  But  what  then  ?  Is  a  sinner 
a  saint,  because  God^  loves  him  ?  and  does  God's  love 
pay  a  man  for  being  a  sinner  ?  Does  God's  choice, 
will,  purpose,  that  we  shall  be  conformed  to  the  image 
of  his  Son,  diminish  in  the  least  the  necessity  of  our  la 
boring  with  all  our  minds  and  hearts  to  achieve  this 
likeness  ?  If  we  leave  it  wholly  with  God,  does  he 
hasten  to  do  any  thing  for  us  ?  Is  lie  impatient  ?  Can 
he  not  bear  to  wait  better  than  we  can  ?  What  are 
ages  of  expectation  to  him  ?  What  is  not  a  year  of 
sin  and  folly  to  us  ?  If  it  be  any  comfort  to  a  man  to 
think  that  God  will  always  desire,  and  propose,  and 
favor  his  salvation,  that  he  will  never  find  any  obstacle 
in  that  direction  to  his  penitence  and  restoration,  he 
can  rightfully  enjoy  it.  But  it  is  quite  another  thing 
to  believe  that  God  has  pledged  himself  to  make  us 
holy  and  happy,  like  Christ  and  himself,  whether  we 
will. or  no,  and  by  instrumentalities  aside  from  our  own 
exertions.  There  is  not  a  word  in  the  New  Testament 


PREDESTINATION    OF    THE    SOUL.  291 

to  favor  any  such  notion,  while  the  whole  spirit  of  the 
Gospel  and  the  whole  constitution  of  humanity  are 
flatly  contradictory  of  it. 

But  surely,  it  is  a  great  and  glorious  fact  to  know 
that  God  has  no  partial,  no  sectional,  no  time-limited 
mercy  and  love  ;  that  his  arms  are  open  to  all  who 
seek  him.  everywhere  and  forever  !  God's  love  is  fixed, 
and  it  is  independent  of  what  we  do  or  forbear — uni 
versal,  all-embracing,  never-failing,  and  never-weary  ! 
His  providence  is  everywhere  directed  to  the  promotion 
of  truth,  charity,  goodness.  Man  is  made  and  preserved, 
to  the  end  that  he  may  possess  and  enjoy  these.  And 
there  is  no  law  in  the  universe  hostile  to  him,  or  to  his 
pursuit  and  possession  of  these  blessed  graces.  But 
while  God  is  God,  man  is  man  ;  and  man's  nature  and 
the  conditions  of  its  peace  and  welfare  are  as  fixed  as 
God's,  by  the  will  of  God.  When  we  say  man,  we 
mean  a  free,  moral,  and  responsible  creature  ;  and  when 
we  say  that  a  man  is  saved,  we  mean  saved  only  as  a 
man  can  be  saved — that  is,  saved  by  the  salvation  of 
his  manhood  ;  saved  in  the  exercise  of  his  freedom,  in 
the  use  of  his  conscience,  in  the  rectifying  of  his  heart, 
in  the  uplifting  of  his  soul.  There  is  no  salvation  in 
heaven  or  earth  in  which  man  has  any  concern,  or  with 
which  the  Gospel  troubles  itself,  but  this  salvation  of 
the  soul  from  sin,  from  alienation  from  God  and  unlike- 
ness  to  Christ,  who  is  presented  as  the  true  and  perma 
nent  model,  and  inspiration,  and  spiritual  head,  of  hu 
manity. 

It  is  glorious  to  know  that  God  has  an  eternal  in 
terest  in  our  souls,  and  an  eternal  desire  and  purpose  to 
have  them  conformed  to  the  image  of  his  Son.  But  is 


292  THE    RE- ADJUSTMENT    OF    FAITH. 

it  not  also  appalling  as  well  as  glorious,  to  consider 
that  infinite  wisdom  and  goodness  hold  this  design 
steadily  in  view,  while  we  oppose,  and  hinder,  and  de 
lay  it ;  making  it,  perhaps,  more  and  more  difficult  of 
accomplishment,  requiring  a  for  longer  and  more  pain 
ful  period  of  years  and  ages  to  effect  it,  and  the  use  of 
more  and  more  tremendous  means  of  discipline  ?  There 
are,  I  suppose,  no  limits  to  the  time  allowed  an  immor 
tal  soul  to  come  into  harmony  with  itself  and  God,  and 
no  end  to  the  infinite  resources  of  Almighty  power  and 
skill  for  rectifying,  cleansing,  and  refashioning  the  per 
verted,  stained,  and  crude  character  of  man.  But  let 
it  be  well  understood,  that  pain  and  restraint,  remorse 
and  self-reprobation,  are  medicines  which  the  Divine 
Physician  freely  administers,  and  that  the  burning  cau 
tery  and  the  bitter  cup  are  not  strange  to  the  hand  of 
the  Almighty  Healer.  We  sometimes  talk  of  God's 
goodness  and  mercy,  as  if  he  shrunk  from  severity  and 
an  heroic  treatment  of  our  sins  and  folly.  But  he  must 
have  blind  eyes  and  deaf  ears  who  does  not  know  that 
God  is  a  wise  Father,  and  not  a  doting  mother  ;  a 
Father  who  has  the  permanent  interests  of  his  children 
in  view,  and  not  their  immediate  comfort ;  a  Father 
who  can  subordinate  feeling  to  judgment,  tenderness 
to  duty.  Pain,  disappointment,  sickness  and  sorrow, 
have  had  a  great  part  to  perform  in  the  education  of 
mankind.  God  has  not  treated  the  human  race  as 
though  it  were  a  toy,  or  a  fondling.  Fire  and  tempest, 
pestilence  and  famine,  have  swept  its  domain  ;  the  sea 
has  raged  at  its  gates  and  flooded  its  plains  ;  lightnings 
have  blasted  and  volcanoes  deluged  it  with  fire  ;  war 
has  emptied  its  bloody  cup  upon  its  head  ;  tyrants  have 


PREDESTINATION    OF    THE    SOUL.  293 

lashed  it  with  their  whips  ;  superstition  has  prostrated 
its  form  in  the  dust,  and  sensuality  buried  it  in  filth. 
And  out  of  this  tremendous  experience  the  civilization 
of  the  world  has  grown.  God  has  counted  nothing 
dear — no  pain,  misery,  or  ruin  too  costly — if  only  ulti 
mate  good  was  to  come  of  it  to  the  race.  And  every 
best  blessing  that  the  world  now  enjoys  is  the  fruit  of 
sorrow,  and  discipline,  and  severity.  As  the  selfish 
passions  of  men  are  the  motive  powers  of  human  excel 
lence,  when  broken  to  their  work,  and  have  a  glory  and 
serviceableness  under  their  true  Master,  precisely  pro 
portioned  to  their  fury  and  injuriousness  under  their 
false  one,  so  the  destructive  and  primitive  forces  of  the 
world,  the  scourges  of  pestilence,  and  war,  and  famine, 
the  demons  of  misrule,  oppression,  and  misery,  are  ever 
changing,  under  God's  benignant  but  relentless  hand, 
into  the  instruments  of  peace  and  plenty — the  angels 
of  love  and  mercy.  We  are  weakly  prophesying  an  end 
to  God's  severity,  and  wondering  that  he  is  not  content 
with  what  satisfies  us.  We  would  gladly  compromise 
with  him  for  the  present  state  of  things.  "  Give  us 
only  peace,"  we  cry  ;  "  let  commerce  only  have  an  un 
interrupted  opportunity  ;  let  education  and  religion  be 
the  mild  agents  of  civilization."  But  God  does  not 
take  our  timid  counsel.  When  we  are  predicting  the 
end  of  all  war,  and  the  inauguration  of  universal  peace, 
he  lets  loose  the  swords  of  the  great  nations  of  Europe, 
and  the  cannon's  roar  deafens  the  ear  of  the  world. 
Were  we  so  little  acquainted  with  the  love  and  genius 
of  God's  providence,  as  to  imagine  him  content  with  a 
policy  that  half-enslaved  the  whole  Eastern  hemisphere, 
and  that  his  providence  would  shrink  from  war,  rather 


294  THE    KE-ADJUSTMENT    OF    FAITH. 

than  from  an  armed  and  oppressive  peace  ?  We  do 
not  know  God,  if  we  think  him  changed  in  his  use  of 
the  costliest  remedies  for  the  highest  ends.  We  ought 
not  to  be  surprised  if  another  thirty  years'  war  should 
convulse  Europe,  and  settle  society  there  upon  an  en 
tirely  new  basis.  And  so  at  home.  Why  can  we  not 
have  domestic  peace  and  abstinence  from  sectional  dis 
pute  and  the  agitation  of  disturbing  questions  ?  You 
might  as  well  ask,  why  the  skilful  physician  will  have 
his  patient  waked  to  take  his  medicine.  What  does 
infinite  justice  and  goodness  think  of  our  temporary 
prosperity,  our  irritability  of  feeling,  our  mutual  annoy 
ance  for  a  generation,  compared  with  the  triumph  of  a 
pure  morality,  a  sound  political  justice,  the  respect  in 
which  we  hold  his  image  ?  There  can  be,  there  will 
be,  no  possible  means  of  pacifying  this  country,  but  by 
beginning  to  do  right.  You  may  talk  of  contracts  and 
constitutions,  made  of  paper  and  ink  ;  but  what  are 
they  before  the  eternal  contract  written  in  human  na 
ture,  and  in  Christ's  blood  ? 

Before  the  sense  of  justice,  the  obligations  of  hu 
manity,  once  fairly  roused,  even  in  a  minority,  all 
interests  of  time  and  sense,  all  mere  laws  of  policy, 
are  as  withs  of  straw.  They  are  meant  to  be  so,  and 
God  would  see  all  our  temporal  prosperity  ground  to 
dust,  before  he  would  put  out  a  spark  of  the  conscience 
which  inflames  and  threatens  the  tranquillity  of  our  na- 
tional  affairs.  Let  there  be  one  national  step  fairly 
taken  in  view  of  justice,  humanity,  respect  towards  tire 
black  race  in  this  country,  and  the  whole  horizon  would 
brighten  with  glory,  and  brotherly  love  and  mutual 


PREDESTINATION    OF    THE    SOUL.  295 

respect  return  to  bless  the  divided  sections  of  our  be 
loved  land. 

And  if  thus  costly  are  the  dealings  of  Glod  with  na 
tions,  when  he  would  bring  them  to  the  line  of  justice  ; 
what  are  we  to  expect  from  him  in  his  dealings  with 
our  souls,  which  he  did  predestinate  to  be  conformed  to 
the  image  of  his  Son  ?  Doubtless,  as  you  look  about 
you  and  see  in  men  the  unpromising  materials  from 
which  God  seeks  to  make  these  likenesses  of  Christ — 
you  tremble  with  doubts  of  his  success  !  Perhaps  you 
feel  in  yourselves  the  hardness  and  reluctance  of  the 
substance  that  he  would  fashion  after  the  holy  and  love 
ly  model  of  Jesus  Christ.  But  surely  we  have  seen  tlie 
most  rude  and  ungracious,  the  most  awkward  and  un 
promising  children,  trained  into  accomplished,  gentle 
and  noble  men  and  women.  What  fruits  of  discipline, 
study,  self-denial,  patience,  perseverance,  have  not 
fallen  under  our  notice,  in  our  general  observations  of 
society  ?  There  is  nothing  so  remarkable  about  man  as 
his  irnprovableness.  Shall  not  he,  who  improves  every 
thing  else,  improve  himself?  Shall  not  he,  who  out  of 
rude  logs  can  frame  a  graceful  ship,  or  from  rough 
stones  erect  a  shapely  temple  ;  or  from  the  coarse  ore 
of  the  mine  melt  out  the  iron,  the  silver  and  the  gold, 
which  he  forges,  shapes  and  polishes  into  the  art  and 
beauty  of  the  world  ; — shall  he  have  no  power  to  fashion 
himself  as  he  will,  to  purge  out  his  own  dross,  to  hew 
away  his  own  knots  and  splinters,  to  build  up  his  own 
being  ?  Shall  man  be  the  miner  of  the  earth,  and  not 
explore  his  own  soul ;  the  subduer  of  the  forest  and 
the  sea,  and  not  subjugate  himself;  the  sculptor  of 
adamant,  and  the  liquefier  of  iron,  and  not  the  shaper 


296  THE    RE-ADJUSTMENT   OF   FAITH. 

of  bis  own  will ;  the  architect  of  pyramid  and  cathedral, 
and  not  the  designer  and  builder  of  his  own  character  ? 
We  ought,  my  brethren,  to  gather  faith  from  our  obser 
vations  of  nature,  commerce  and  art.  Your  own  daily 
pursuits  should  teach  you  to  believe  in  the  possibilities 
of  conforming  yourself  to  any  model  you  really  love  and 
reverence,  and  desire  to  resemble.  Does  distance  or 
difficulty  obstruct  any  genuine  passion  of  your  hearts  ? 
You  will  go  round  the  world  for  the  guano  that  warms 
your  soil,  the  quicksilver  that  separates  your  gold,  the 
spices  that  flavor  your  food,  the  seeds  and  gums  that  are 
your  medicines.  You  bring  your  teas  from  China,  your 
dye-woods  from  New  Holland,  your  oil  from  the  poles, 
your  sugar  from  the  equator.  Distance  and  difficulty, 
deserts  and  depths,  cannot  deter  nor  defeat  your  designs. 
Nor  can  any  unseemliness  and  roughness  of  Nature's 
products  withstand  the  transforming  powers  of  your 
mills  and  crucibles,  your  furnaces  and  cisterns,  your 
saws  and  hammers.  You  put  the  cumbrous  yellow  cane 
of  Louisiana  into  the  caldron,  and  take  out  the  glis 
tening  crystals  of  snow  that  sweeten  your  daily  drink  ; 
you  shear  the  shaggy  sheep  of  the  Green  Mountains, 
and  weave  the  delicate  and  various  cloths  you  wear. 
You  tap  the  trees  of  Para,  and  from  their  gums  you 
fashion  the  defences  of  your  feet — the  impenetrable 
garments  that  defy  the  storms  of  sea  and  winter  ;  and 
presently  you  mimic  the  woods  and  the  metals,  and 
give  the  softest  pliancy  or  toughest  rigid! ty>  as  you  will, 
to  the  curious  substance  you  have  gathered.  What 
transformations  do  you  not  effect  in  the  substances  you 
choose  to  work  in  ?  Is  there  any  quality  you  wish  to 
communicate  to  any  substance,  that  you  despair  of 


PREDESTINATION    OF    THE    SOUL.  297 

finally  effecting  it  ?  Will  you  have  wood  that  will  not 
burn,  or  water  that  will;  iron  that  will  float,  or  elec 
tricity  that  will  talk,  do  you  not  attain  these  wishes  ? 
And  is  it  only  humanity  that  does  not  reward  zeal,  and 
labor,  and  thought  ?  Is  it  only  the  soul's  qualities  that 
cannot  be  enriched,  improved  and  refined  ?  Can  you 
transform  the  metals  and  the  gases,  melt  the  ores  and 
solidify  the  airs,  handle  the  lightning  and  fix  the  sun 
beams — and  can  you  not  transform  yourselves  into  the 
image  of  Christ ;  transplant  his  graces  into  your  souls  ; 
import  from  Palestine  the  fragrance  of  his  virtues,  ex 
hume  his  ashes  and  enrich  your  sterile  clay  ;  reliquify 
his  spilled  and  precious  blood  to  re-animate  your  hearts, 
weave  his  precepts  into  the  fabric  of  your  souls ; 
catch  his  spirit,  and  fix  It  in  the  substance  of  your 
lives  ?  Cannot  you,  who  re-form  and  transform  every 
thing  else,  be  transformed  in  the  spirit  of  your  minds, 
and  conformed  to  the  image  of  God's  Son  ? 

Do  not  doubt  your  ability,  my  brethren.  Nothing 
is  so  ductile,  transformable,  improvable,  as  the  soul. 
The  powers  of  Nature  are  dull  scholars  beside  the 
powers  of  humanity.  You  can,  if  you  will,  do  any 
thing,  every  thing,  good  and  right,  noble  and  glorious, 
with  your  nature  and  character.  And,  believe  me,  God 
will  not  let  you  do  any  thing  else  without  solemn  and 
painful  remonstrance  !  You  are  quarrelling  with  his 
predestination,  his  sacred  will  and  purpose,  in  every 
hour's  neglect,  disobedience  or  delay.  All  your  sor 
rows,  trials,  misfortunes,  sufferings,  are  his  protests 
against  your  folly,  obduracy,  or  shortness  of  sight ! 
You  are  willing  to  be,  or  trying  to  be,  what  he  would 
not  have  you  ;  willing  to  be  selfish,  self-indulgent,  base, 
13* 


298  THE    RE-ADJUSTMENT    OF    FAITH. 

cruel,  mean,  slothful,  low-minded.  You  are  willing  to 
be  in  the  image  of  the  world,  or  of  the  devil,  to  copy 
fashion,  or  shape  yourselves  into  idols  of  pride,  envy 
and  admiration.  You  would  run  your  sacred  and  pre 
cious  faculties  into  moulds  which  the  fleeting  age  has 
made,  and  take  on  the  shape  of  your  convenience,  or 
your  inclinations.  You  allow  any  strong  hand  that 
dares,  to  lay  its  forming  finger  on  you,  until  you  are 
marked  all  over  with  the  tools  and  handling  of  the  va 
rious  circumstances  and  powers  that  would  give  you 
their  own  likeness.  And  thus  you  are  hardening,  de 
forming,  mis-shaping  yourselves,  and  making  it  neces 
sary  for  God,  would  he  save  your  souls,  to  deal  from 
time  to  time  with  a  severity  which  is  only  the  begin 
ning  of  a  conflict  which  will  never  end  but  with  your 
submission.  Oh,  how  worse  than  wasted  are  a  thousand 
human  lives,  all  whose  powers,  cunning,  labor,  have  been 
exhausted  upon  a  resistance  to  the  divine  model  of  a 
true  life  ? 

Have  you  seen  the  costly  preparations  for  some  great 
casting  of  iron — the  bed-plate  of  a  vast  marine-engine, 
for  instance  ?  The  sooty  workmen,  at  mine  and  furnace, 
have  been  long  at  work  digging  the  ore  and  blasting  the 
iron.  There  it  lies  corded  in  yonder  piles  of  ugly  crude- 
ness  and  grim  strength  !  Here,  beneath  this  lofty  roof, 
full  of  rough  and  shapeless  materials,  of  vast  cranes  and 
monstrous  tackles  and  chains  from  which  the  world 
might  hang,  with  the  dying  light  of  day  struggling  in 
from  windows  in  the  roof,  and  the  flaming  light  of  fur 
naces  flashing  up  from  its  floor,  the  preparations  have 
been  and  are  still  going  on  !  For  months,  the  skilful 
workmen,  in  the  nioulding-sand  that  forms  the  floor, 


PREDESTINATION    OF    THE    SOUL.  299 

have  been  busy  with  firm  and  cunning  fingers  forming 
the  mould,  with  every  mortice,  bolt-hole,  groove,  stay, 
inclination,  anxiously  adjusted  and  arranged  ;  and  there 
it  lies  buried  in  the  ground.  Near  by,  the  furnaces, 
heated  seven  times  hot,  hold  the  obdurate  metal  seeth 
ing  and  boiling  in  their  hellish  jaws.  From  minute  to 
minute  the  doors  are  opened,  and  out  flows — amid 
flames  and  sparks  that  threaten  the  destruction  of  the 
building,  and  amid  which  the  workmen  stand  as  un 
harmed  and  unterrified  as  the  three  men  that  walked  in 
the  prophet's  furnace — buckets  of  molten  iron,  that  are 
borne  with  staggering  steps  and  emptied  into  the  vast 
caldron,  from  which  the  mould  is  finally  to  be  filled. 
The  long-expected  and  anxiously-prepared-for  mo 
ment  at  length  approaches.  Nay,  it  is  precipitated. 
For  the  door  of  the  reservoir  leaks  with  the  immense 
weight  of  its  raging  contents.  At  a  word,  the  channels 
for  the  molten  iron  are  cleared  !  the  foreman  stands  at 
the  bursting  gate  !  the  workmen,  with  bars  and  tools 
suited  each  to  its  end,  take  their  posts,  while  the  mas 
ter,  standing  over  the  mould,  and  looking  calmly  but 
earnestly  round — finally  gives  the  signal  !  Up  flies  the 
gate,  forth  leaps  the  furious  current,  the  channels  blaze 
with  fire,  the  mould  trembles  and  smokes  with  the  in- 
rushing  contents,  the  loosened  gases  explode  from  their 
tubes  !  but  silence  and  suspense  hold  the  assembly  still. 
The  master  stands  intently  watching  the  shrews  for 
signs  of  any  superfluity  of  metal.  Perhaps  there  has 
been  miscalculation,  and  not  enough  ?  Perhaps  the 
mighty  weight  has  crushed  the  mould,  and  the  metal  is 
sinking  into  the  ground  ?  Perhaps  the  casting  is  a 
failure,  and  the  labor  of  months  is  to  be  repeated  ?  A 


300  THE    RE-ADJUSTMENT    OF    FAITH. 

moment  must  settle  the  results  of  a  whole  quarter's  toil ; 
the  profits  of  years  of  industry  are  at  stake  ;  the  pride 
of  the  engineer,  the  suspense  of  the  workmen,  all  feel 
ings  of  sympathy,  are  concentrated  in  this  anxious  min 
ute.  But  lo  !  just  here  bubbles  feebly  up  the  tardy 
metal,  rises  a  few  inches  above  the  surface,  and  stops — 
not  a  gallon  of  metal  to  spare,  not  a  hundred  pounds 
over,  in  a  casting  of  forty  tons  !  Success,  proud,  happy, 
glorious  success,  has  crowned  the  arduous  work  !  But 
had  it  failed  !  to  break  up  the  obdurate  mass  and  pre 
pare  for  another  attempt,  is  a  work  of  immense  labor 
and  expense — not  to  name  the  toil  and  time  already 
wasted  ! 

And  is  not  this  just  what  God  must  do,  and  will  do, 
with  our  hardened  and  ill-fashioned  souls,  run  into  mis 
shapen  moulds  and  disappointing  forms — when  he  is 
looking  for  the  image  of  his  Son  !  What  hammers 
shall  break  up  our  souls  ;  what  furnace*  shall  re-melt 
our  substance  ?  God  only  knows.  But  think  of  a  life's 
labor  thrown  away  ! 

My  brethren,  you  are  beginning  a  new  year  !  For 
twelve  months  God  has  been  at  work  with  his  provi 
dence  upon  your  souls.  He  has  done  his  part,  and  al 
ways  with  reference  to  one  end — your  conformity  to  the 
image  of  his  Son.  How  have  you  done  yours  ?  Have 
you  used  the  mould  he  furnishes  you  in  his  Son  ?  have 
you  been  putting  all  you  are  into  the  furnace  which 
is  designed  to  prepare  your  souls  to  take  on  the  likeness 
of  Christ  ?  Have  you  had  God's  will,  Christ's  charac 
ter,  your  spiritual  and  holy  destiny,,  steadily  in  view 
these  twelve  months  gone  ?  Have  you  been  ceaselessly, 
patiently,  regularly  at  work  in  the  great  object  and  aim 
of  your  lives  through  this  period  ?  I  looked  upon  a 


PREDESTINATION    OF    THE    SOUL.  301 

steam  engine  last  week,  connected  with  a  blast-furnace, 
which  for  thirteen  months,  day  and  night,  had  not  one 
instant  ceased  its  smooth,  calm,  powerful,  efficient,  and 
changeless  motion.     What  an  image    of  patient  per 
sistency  !  of  laborious  industry  !  of  singleness  of  aim  ! 
— nay,  what  a  triumph  of  human  skill  !     There  was  a 
year's  work  well  done.     How  much  had  that  uncon 
scious  servant  meanwhile  earned  for  its  master  ?     And 
cannot  the  inventor  and  owner  of  that  machine  do  a 
year's  steady,  telling,  single-eyed  and  unwearied  work  ? 
Is  the  brain  a  less  perfect  workmanship  than  the  steam 
engine  ?     Is  the  heart  a  less  constant  fire  than  the 
forge  ?     Is  the  soul  incapable  of  as  firm  a  bed,  as  steady 
a  motion,  as  resolute  a  task,  as  the  mill  or  the  machine  ? 
Let  us  see  what  another  year  can  do  to  prove  our  spir 
itual  competency  to  do  a  man's  work  for  our  characters. 
We   want   only  that  faith  and  courage  and  devotion 
which  we  show  in  our  affairs,  directed  on  ourselves,  to 
bring  miracles  to  pass  in  self-improvement,  growth  in 
grace  and  likeness  to  Christ.     Let  the  labors  of  this 
year,  which  promises  to  be  one  of  general  prosperity  in 
our  outward  affairs,  be  now  deliberately  consecrated  to 
the  salvation  of  our  souls.     Would  to  God  that  phrase 
had  no  technical,  no  canting,  no  false  and  misleading 
sound  in  it  !     I  mean  by  it,  nothing  professional.     It 
has   no   mere   pulpit  import.     I  ask  of  you  to  see  and 
acknowledge,  and  consecrate  yourselves  to,  the  glorious 
and  solemn  destiny  for  which  you  were  created.     In  the 
name  of  your  rational  fears  and  your  rational  hopes — in 
the   name  of  your  immortal  souls — I  beseech  you  to 
pledge  this  year  to  the  realization  of  religion  ;  to  the 
study  of  your  eternal  destiny  ;  to  the  acquaintance  and 
emulation  of  Jesus  Christ. 


302  THE    RE-ADJUSTMENT    OF    FAITH. 

I  am  no  believer  in  omens,  and  no  conjurer  of  su 
perstitions  ;  but  God  knows  the  need  the  teacher  of  re 
ligion  lias  to  turn  into  encouragements  in  his  work 
whatever  looks  that  way,  and  therefore  you  will  pardon 
me  for  concluding  my  discourse  with  a  personal  refer 
ence,  especially  on  the  opening  of  the  new  year,  which 
is  the  anniversary  of  the  Sabbath  that  began  my  min 
istry  to  this  congregation.  Seventeen  years — one  fourth 
of  a  human  life  of  seventy  years — have  I  completed  in 
your  service  ;  and  now,  under  fresh  auspices,  we  begin 
together  the  new  year  and  another  term  of  religious  co 
operation.  At  such  a  time,  might  I  not  innocently 
convert  the  fact  into  a  presage  of  cheer,  that  on  the 
morning  of  the  new  year,  the  image  of  Christ,  a  copy 
from  Thorwalsden's  celebrated  statue,  found  its  way 
among  other  gifts,  into  my  home,  and  stretched  its  be 
nignant  arms  over  my  fireside,  and  cast  its  mild  and 
consoling  looks  into  my  eyes  !  "  Begin  the  year/'  it 
said  to  my  heart,  "  in  the  blessing  of  the  Saviour.  Be 
conformed  more  perfectly  to  the  image  of  the  Son  of 
God,  in  life  and  conversation.  Look  on  your  model, 
and  know  that  years  come  and  go,  only  that  you  may 
have  time  and  opportunity  to  grow  into  his  likeness  ! 
Go  to  the  people  of  your  care,  and  your  early  and  later 
affections,  with  this  New  Year's  greeting.  Bid  them 
be  conformed  to  the  image  of  Christ,  and  tell  them 
God  has  predestinated  them  to  this  difficult  yet  glorious 
end.  Comfort  and  warn,  persuade  and  encourage  them 
• — and  lo  !  I  am  with  you  alway,  even  unto  the  end  of 
the  world." 

JAN.  5,  1856. 


SERMON  XIX. 

THE  SUFFERING  CHRIST  AND   THE   LAW  OF  VICARIOUSNESS. 

"  Who  now  rejoice  in  my  sufferings  for  you,  and  fill  up  that  which  is  be 
hind  of  the  afflictions  of  Christ  in  my  flesh,  for  his  body's  sake,  which 
is  the  church." — COL.  i.  24. 

PAUL  thus  rejoices  in  his  sufferings  for  the  Colos- 
sians.  He  was  glad  to  do  them  good,  and  save  them 
moral  loss  and  wretchedness,  by  any  amount  of  personal 
hardship,  indignity,  and  sorrow.  He  felt  that  he  thus 
made  himself  a  partaker  of  Christ's  sufferings,  and  filled 
out  in  part  whatever  had  been  wanting  in  his  afflictions 
to  consummate  the  great  end  of  saving  the  world.  A 
strong  light  is  thrown  by  these  natural  expressions  of 
Paul  upon  the  true  nature  and  object  of  our  Lord's  suf 
ferings.  If  Paul  could  do  any  thing  "  to  fill  up  that 
which  is  behind  of  the  afflictions  of  Christ/'  it  is  very 
clear  that,  however  great  and  transcendent  his  suffer 
ings  were,  it  was  nothing  peculiar  in  the  nature  of  the 
sufferer  which  gave  special  efficacy  to  his  pangs,  for 
Paul's  afflictions  were  to  be  added  to  them,  and  to 
reckon  with  them,  and  we  cannot  add  things  that  do 
not  come  under  a  common  denominator ;  and,  if  there 


304  THE    RE-ADJUSTMENT    OF    FAITH. 

remained  any  thing  to  be  added,  it  shows  further  that 
the  sacrifice,  however  grand  and  sublime,  was  not  infi 
nite  and  complete,  and  did  not  act  after  the  manner  of 
a  charm,  a  bargain,  or  a  mystery.  Christ's  sufferings, 
in  short,  were  like  Paul's  sufferings — like  the  sufferings 
of  every  lover  of  his  race  and  servant  of  humanity — the 
price  which  devotedness  and  consecration  to  the  good 
of  others  willingly  pays  for  the  accomplishment  of  its 
benevolent  and  exalted  objects.  Christ's  sufferings  fol 
lowed  the  law  of  all  sufferings  borne  in  the  cause  of  hu 
manity.  They  were  peculiar  only  as  all  afflictions  are 
peculiarized  by  the  position,  character,  spirit,  and  cir 
cumstances,  of  the  sufferer.  Sustaining  supernatural 
and  extraordinary  relations  to  the  race,  the  promised 
Messiah  and  express  Messenger  of  God,  a  sinless  and 
holy  being,  a  thoroughly  and  immeasurably  devoted 
friend  of  man,  a  hero  and  martyr  of  unrivalled  and  sur 
passing  greatness  and  goodness,  every  thing  connected 
with  our  Saviour  has  vastly  added  importance  and  dig 
nity  ;  and  his  sufferings  partake  the  multiplicity  and 
far-reaching  value  and  efficacy  which  belong  to  his  pre 
cepts  and  promises,  his  virtues  and  moral  perfections. 
The  significance  of  his  words,  his  spirit,  his  example, 
his  character  and  office,  all  give  the  measure  of  the  sig 
nificance  which  belongs  to  his  sufferings.  But,  however 
much  greater  and  more  efficacious  than  any,  or  were  it 
possible  than  all  other  sufferings  of  apostles,  martyrs, 
and  saints,  Christ's  afflictions  may  have  been,  the  suf 
ferings  were  yet  the  same  in  kind,  and  the  same  in  de 
sign  and  effect,  with  theirs  ;  namely,  by  the  law  of  sym 
pathy,  the  example  of  disinterestedness,  and  the  influence 
of  costly  service,  to  remove  obstacles  either  in  the  cir- 


THE    SUFFERING    CHRIST.  305 

cumstances,  the  wills,  or  the  affections  of  others,  to  the 
practice  of  obedience  and  the  pursuit  of  holiness.  Paul's 
afflictions  could  properly  be  added  to  Christ's,  without 
a  change  of  terms.  They  may  have  been  only  as  one 
to  a  hundred,  or  as  one  to  a  thousand  ;  but  their  effi 
cacy,  however  proportioned,  was  of  the  same  sort.  And 
what  was  true  of  Paul  was  true  of  all  the  other  apos 
tles,  and  has  been  true  of  all  servants  of  God  and  hu 
manity  before  Christ  and  since,  and  is  now  true  of 
every  laborer  and  sufferer  in  the  cause  of  human  virtue 
and  happiness. 

Furthermore,  Christ's  immediate  sufferings  upon 
the  cross,  the  agonies  of  his  death,  are  not  properly 
separable  from  his  other  afflictions.  His  life  was  one 
long  martyrdom  for  humanity.  He  died  daily.  Every 
hour  had  its  cross  for  him.  A  perpetual  and  systematic 
self-denial  of  appetites,  natural  tastes,  selfish  inclina 
tions,  and  personal  hopes  and  fears  ;  a  crucifixion  of 
ease,  bodily  shrinkings,  and  natural  affections  ;  an  aban 
donment  of  sleep,  food,  and  safety  ;  a  painful  submission 
to  the  suspicions,  taunts,  and  cruelties  of  his  country 
men — all  these  forms  of  sufferings  belonged  to  his  ordi 
nary  experience.  Doubtless  the  sum  of  his  afflictions, 
any  month  of  his  active  ministerial  life,  exceeded  the 
anguish  of  his  cross  ;  and  when  we  fasten  exclusively 
on  that,  and  expend  all  our  gratitude  on  his  mangled 
form,  we  do  the  less  striking,  but  perhaps  more  patient 
and  costly  afflictions  of  our  Saviour,  a  thankless  wrong. 
Not,  my  brethren,  that  our  instincts  of  affection  are 
mistaken  in  lavishing  upon  the  most  vivid  and  expres 
sive  moment  of  his  history,  that  last  possible  sacrifice 
of  self,  his  suffering  death,  the  tenderest  and  most  abun- 


306  THE    RE-ADJUSTMENT   OF   FAITH. 

dant  tears  of  gratitude  and  love  !  This  is  natural,  and 
in  accordance  with  the  need  we  have  of  concentrating 
our  feelings  and  recollections  upon  pregnant  and  char 
acteristic  moments.  But  it  is  because  the  cross  was 
Christ's  life-long  posture  ;  because  his  death  was  one 
with  his  life — always  suffering,  self-sacrificing,  and  de 
voted — always  afflicted  with  wrong,  violence,  and  per 
secution — that  we  are  led  to  sum  up  all  our  memory  of 
his  sorrows  in  the  last  fatal  agony  of  his  death.  But 
let  us  not  superstitiously  allow  this  natural  and  becom 
ing  sensibility  to  harden  into  dogma,  until  we  end  in 
attaching  to  the  death  of  Christ  a  mysterious  efficacy 
which  did  not  belong  to  his  life,  and  separate  the  an 
guish  of  his  cross  from  the  afflictions  of  his  ministry. 
"  For  if,  when  we  were  enemies,  we  were  reconciled  to 
God  by  the  death  of  his  Son,  much  more  being  recon 
ciled,  we  shall  be  saved  by  his  life." ' 

Again  :  There  can  be  no  greater  or  more  blinding 
heresy  than  that  which  w*uld  teach  that  Christ's  suf 
ferings,  or  any  sufferings  in  behalf  of  virtue  and  human 
sins  and  sorrows,  are  strictly  substitutional,  or  literally 
vicarious.  The  old  theologies,  perplexed  and  darkened 
with  metaphysics  and  scholastic  logic — the  fruit  of  aca 
demic  pride  and  the  love  of  ecclesiastical  dominion — la 
bored  to  prove  and  to  teach,  that  Christ,  in  his  short 
agony  upon  the  cross,  really  suffered  the  pains  of  sin, 
and  bore  the  actual  sum  of  all  the  anguish  from  remorse 
and  guilt  due  to  myriads  of  sinners,  through  the  ages 
of  eternity.  To  enable  him  to  concentrate  into  a  few 

hours  of  suffering  what  eternity  alone  could  have  suf- 

• 

1  Rom.  v.  10. 


THE    SUFFERING    CHRIST.  307 

ficed  to  expiate  in  men,  and  to  bear,  in  his  sole  person, 
what  myriads,  dead  and  not  yet  born,  were  to  have  di 
vided  among  them  all,  he  was  pronounced  a  God — capa 
ble  of  infinite  sorrows — of  feeling  in  a  moment  what  a 
finite  being  could  feel  only  in  an  experience  of  utter 
misery,  extending  forever  ;  and  of  suffering  solitarily 
what  the  united  race  of  sinners  could  suffer  only  in  the 
added  sum  of  their  several  endless  miseries  !  What 
gain  would  the  cause  of  virtue  and  happiness  make  by 
any  such  arrangement,  were  it  possible,  or  rationally 
conceivable  ?  There  would  be  no  diminution  of  suffer 
ing  in  the  universe,  even  by  an  iota  ;  and  the  quality 
and  nature  of  the  suffering  would  not  be  changed.  On 
the  contrary,  our  sense  of  justice  and  goodness,  so  far 
as  God  himself  is  concerned,  is  vastly  more  shocked  by 
the  proper  penalties  of  sin  being  placed  upon  the  inno 
cent,  than  had  they  been  left  upon  the  guilty,  where 
they  belong.  Had  Christ,  an  infinitely  holy  and  right 
eous  being,  been  condemned  to  suffer  in  his  own  person 
the  agonies  of  boundless  guilt,  and  had  the  human  race, 
wicked  and  sinful,  come  forward  and  offered  to  divide 
among  themselves  the  woe  that  was  to  fall  upon  him, 
we  should  say  that  God^  consent  and  acceptance  of 
such  a  proposition  would  be  worthy  of  his  character  and 
justice.  But  the  truth  is,  literal  substitution  of  moral 
penalties  is  a  thing  absolutely  impossible  !  vicarious 
punishment,  in  its  technical  and  theological  sense,  is 
forbidden  by  the  very  laws  of  our  nature  and  moral 
constitution  !  The  innocent  may  suffer  for  the  guilty, 
but  they  cannot  suffer  as  the  guilty,  nor  what  the 
guilty  suffer.  The  truth-teller  cannot  bear  the  liar's 
penalties,  which  are  shame,  perplexity,  and  guilt ;  the 


308  THE   RE-ADJUSTMENT    OF    FAITH. 

pure  cannot  suffer  the  consequences  of  impurity,  which 
are  self-disgust,   loathing,   and  degradation  ;    nor  the 
spiritually-minded,  the  afflictions  which  pursue  the  self 
ish  and  worldly,  which  are  blindness  of  heart,  decay  of 
moral  sensibility,  dread  of  death,  and  fear  of  God.    You 
can  make  a  good  man  suffer  as  a  bad  man  only  by  mak 
ing  him  a  bad  man,  and  then  he  will  suffer  on  his  own 
account.     Now  the  good,  the  benevolent,  the  hoi}',  may 
and  do  suffer  for  the  sinful,  the  bad,  and  the  wicked  ; 
but  they  suffer  in  a  way  which  actually  increases  the 
joy  of  the  universe,  and  diminishes  its  threatening  pains 
and  penalties.     Do  you  suppose  that  heavenly  justice, 
goodness  and  mercy  would  permit  any  suffering  to  fall  on 
its  best  beloved  Son,  or  on  any  virtuous  and  holy  per 
sons,  in  a  way  that  really  and  truly  diminished  either 
their  worth  or  their  essential  happiness  ?      No  !  the 
sufferings   which    virtue,  disinterestedness,   sympathy, 
humanity,  bring  upon  the  souls  of  their  champions  and 
glorious  victims,  are  such  as  Paul,  in  our  text,  could 
honestly  say  he  rejoiced  in.     And  it  is  such  pure  and 
blessed  sufferings  that  God,  by  his  Gospel,  is  constantly 
inviting  us  to  substitute  fur  those  sufferings  which  are 
evil,  and  evil  only  ;  the  sufferings  of  innocency,  which 
elevate  and  adorn,  and  sanctify  and  bless,  which  are 
joys  in  tears,  blessings  in  disguise — for  those  sufferings 
of  guilt  which  punish,   degrade,  waste,   and  defile — 
moral   blindness,   selfishness,    malice,    alienation   from 
God,  self-disgust,  enmity  with  the  conscience,  and  con 
flict  with  the  race.     Sin  is  suffering,  and  it  is  the  only 
suffering  which  is  dark  and  dreadful.     There  is  no  light 
in  it.-    It  harms,  and  only  harms.     It  introduces  con 
fusion  and  chaos  ;    it  poisons  personal  and  domestic 


THE    SUFFERING    CHRIST.  309 

peace  ;  it  shuts  out  heaven  ;  it  curses  earth  ;  it  con 
verts  men  into  devils,  and  brothers  into  enemies.  It  is 
the  source  of  all  the  degrading  misery  and  hopeless 
wretchedness  in  the  world  !  But  pain,  sickness,  labor, 
loss,  bereavement,  self-denial,  persecution,  anguish  of 
body,  anxiety  of  heart,  sympathy  with  others'  woes, 
death,  crucifixion  by  violence — why,  consider  for  a  mo 
ment  what  a  changed,  what  a  blessed  world  it  would 
be,  if  these,  the  sufferings  of  innocence,  these,  the  pangs 
of  sensibility,  these,  the  labors  and  toils  of  virtue,  these, 
the  tears  and  groans  of  pity,  were  the  only  sufferings  in 
the  world  ?  How  much  of  these  might  not  wisely  be 
borne,  to  do  away  ever  so  little  of  the  penalties  of  sin  ? 
how  much  ought  we  not  to  bear,  to  save  ourselves  ever 
so  little  of  the  reproach  and  degradation  of  guilt  ?  how 
ready  should  we  be  to  endure  the  contradiction  of  sin 
ners,  and  to  bear  the  cross,  that  we  may  extinguish,  in 
any  degree,  the  blight  and  curse  of  sin  in  our  fellow- 
beings  now  in  the  world,  or  yet  to  come  into  the 
world  ? 

And  this  is  the  real  substitution  and  vicariousness 
of  that  glorious  and  blessed  system  of  relief,  which  is 
honored  and  illustrated  so  splendidly  by  Christ's  cross — 
the  transmutation  of  the  sufferings  of  sin  into  the  suf 
ferings  of  innocency  ; — not  the  making  of  the  innocent 
guilty,  or  the  treating  them  as  guilty  ;  but  the  removal 
of  guilt  by  the  labors  and  sacrifices  of  goodness  ;  suffer 
ings  of  the  flesh,  of  the  disinterested  sympathies,  of  the 
humane  affections,  substituted  for  sufferings  of  the  soul, 
the  conscience,  the  very  Nature.  On  these  sufferings — 
guilt  and  degradation,  blindness  and  selfishness,  hatred 
and  malice,  lust  and  rebellion,  cruelty  and  cunning, 


310  THE    RE-ADJUSTMENT    OF    FAITH. 

enmity,  falsehood  and  fraud — the  occupants  of  the  sin 
ner's  heart — God  looks  with  infinite  concern  and  anx 
iety  !  If  he  can  substitute  for  such  hopeless,  ruinous 
and  corrupting  sufferings—  the  pangs  of  virtuous  labor, 
the  groans  of  striving  and  pitiful  goodness,  the  sorrows 
and  tears  of  self-sacrificing  mercy,  the  anguish  of  self- 
devoted  love — what  an  enormous  relief  to  the  aspect  of 
the  world,  and  the  honor,  and  beauty,  and  happiness  of 
the  universe  ?  And  this  is  the  real  change  which 
Christianity  is  gradually  effecting.  It  has  certainly  not 
diminished  the  suffering  in  the  world — but  it  has  altered 
its  expression,  and  is  transmuting  its  character.  The  suf 
fering  which  sprung  from  brutal  passions,  from  violence, 
intense  depravity,  and  hatred,  and  malice — from  positive 
sin  and  wickedness — is  giving  way,  in  some  considerable 
degree,  to  the  suffering  which  comes  from  aspiration, 
sympathy,  sensibility  to  the  imperfections  and  wants  of 
the  soul  and  of  society.  When  men  suffered  most  wo- 
fully  and  hopelessly,  it  was  not  always  acutely  or  even 
consciously,  that  they  suffered  !  Impaired  in  manhood, 
ungrown  in  thought,  darkened  in  conscience — they  were 
poor,  mutilated  or  undeveloped  souls,  suffering  the  most 
serious  and  pitiable  wrong,  and  ignorant  of  their 
misery  !  The  most  desperate  sinners  are  not  always  re 
morseful  ; — but  oh  !  what  frightful  penalties  are  they 
not  daily  paying  for  their  wickedness  ?  Like  the  worst 
physical  injuries  from  frost  or  fire,  which  first  destroy 
the  sensibility,  and  then  utterly  devastate  the  human 
frame,  sin,  whether  it  be  against  light  or  in  the  absence 
of  light,  is  often,  in  its  most  hideous  forms,  apathetic 
and  horribly  unconscious  of  its  inhuman  work.  Have 
you  not  seen  those  low,  painless  fevers,  which  gnaw  at 


THE    SUFFERING   CHRIST.  311 

the  throat  or  drink  up  the  blood  ?  What  acute  dis 
ease  is  not  less  dreadful  and  less  fatal  ?  The  world, 
in  Christ's  days,  was  filled  with  the  dull  misery,  the 
painless  horror,  the  stupid  wretchedness  of  moral 
degradation  ; — of  human  guilt  and  sin  that  did  not 
know  its  own  name,  or  feel  its  own  death-penalty  ! 
Enough  of  wilful  sin,  of  acute  remorse,  of  self-reproach, 
always  exists  to  he  deplored  and  relieved ;  but  it  is 
never  the  sum  of  human  suffering.  That  lies  dark  and 
solid  in  the  mountain  of  moral  blindness,  torpid  con 
science,  wasted  powers,  perverted  faculties  ;  of  ignorant 
alienation  from  goodness  and  God  ;  and  dreadful,  dumb, 
and  sometimes  smiling,  insensibility  to  honor,  justice  and 
duty  !  Oh  !  fatal  selfishness  !  oh  !  stupid  chill  of  moral 
death  !  blind  unbelief !  deaf  inhumanity  !  "  Oh  !  Je 
rusalem  !  Jerusalem!  thou.  that  killest  the  prophets 
and  stonest  them  that  are  sent  unto  thee,  how  often 
would  I  have  gathered  thy  children  together  even  as  a 
hen  gathereth  her  chickens  under  her  wings,  and  ye 
would  not !  Behold  your  house  is  left  unto  you  deso 
late  !  " 

In  this  great  substitutional  and  sacrificial  work,  of 
putting  innocent  suffering  and  self-sacrifice  in  the  place 
of  guilty  suffering  and  sowZ-sacrifice — all  the  genuine 
followers  of  Christ  are  engaged,  and  are  thus  made  par 
takers  of  his  sufferings  and  death,  and  "  fill  out  what 
is  behind  of  the  afflictions  of  Christ."  Whenever  we 
crucify  any  appetite,  or  resist  any  impulse,  or  rescue 
any  time  or  faculty,  or  strain  any  reluctant  nerve,  or 
whip  any  torpid  muscle,  or  forego  any  innocent  enjoy 
ment,  or  encounter  any  physical  peril,  or  defy  fashion 
and  custom,  or  confront  censure  and  shame,  for  the 


312  THE    RE-ADJUSTMENT    OF    FAITH. 

sake  of  the  moral  enlightenment  of  the  ignorant,  the 
guidance  and  help  of  the  erring,  the  softening  of  the  im 
penitent,  the  encouragement  of  the  struggling,  the  sal 
vation  of  the  lost — we  are  partaking  Christ's  sufferings 
and  bearing  his  cross.  And  this  glorious  opportunity  is 
not  denied  to  any  of  us.  We  are  surrounded  by  the 
degraded,  the  sinful  and  the  blind.  Their  sufferings 
blacken  the  sky.  The  stripes  with  which  they  are 
beaten  by  sin  half  deface  the  image  of  God  in  which 
they  are  made.  Is  there  any  thing  in  reeking  battle 
fields,  in  festering  lazar-houses,  in  heathen  temples, 
more  cruel  and  soul-moving  than  the  moral  degradation 
of  thousands  who  live  at  our  own  doors  ?  beings  hardly 
more  human  than  the  dogs  tackled  with  them  to  the 
carts  they  draw — their  senses  so  brutified  that  filth  is  no 
longer  offensive  to  them  ;  their  tastes  so  low  that  they 
riot  in  their  bestiality.  Talk  to  them  of  God  and  they 
stare  with  stupid  wonder  !  of  Christ,  and  they  think 
you  speak  of  some  neighbor  !  of  their  souls,  and  they  feel 
about  as  for  their  knife  or  purse  !  And  perhaps  thtir 
loathsome  state  is  not  so  helpless  as  that  of  a  class 
greatly  above  them  in  outward  condition — the  rude, 
ferocious,  defying  youth  of  our  cities — their  symbol,  a 
bludgeon  or  a  pistol — the  vigorous,  rebellious,  insolent 
product  of  our  own  crude  institutions — just  taught 
enough  to  be  doubly  dangerous — to  whom  God  and 
Christ  are  merely  the  convenient  counters  of  profanity  ; 
virtue,  the  standing  mark  for  jests  ;  daylight,  the  name 
for  the  labor  they  hate  ;  night,  the  synonyme  of  drunk 
enness,  riot,  violence  and  crime.  Nor  are  these  young 
banditti,  that  infest  our  streets  and  make  our  walks 
dangerous  at  early  evening,  the  most  alarming  portion 


THE    SUFFERING    CHRIST.  313 

of  the  community  !  The  very  places  of  legislation  and 
government  have  lately  been,  and  even  now  to  some  ex 
tent  are,  in  the  hands  of  the  shameless  and  the  violent ; 
nor  do  any  combinations  or  remonstrances  of  the  wise 
and  good  suffice  to  prevent  or  control  the  bribery  and 
corruption,  the  peculation  and  crime  of  those  whom  the 
community  have  placed  in  power.  If  good  men  are 
joined  to  the  city  councils,  their  hands  are  tied  by  ma 
jorities,  and  their  interference  rendered  null.  We  know 
not  from  which  quarter  we  have  most  to  fear,  from  the 
thieves  or  the  government  ;  the  illegal  or  the  legalized 
crime  of  the  city  !  And  what  is  all  the  peril  to  life  and 
property  which  such  a  state  of  things  involves,  horrible 
as  it  is,  compared  with  the  degradation  and  accursed- 
ness  which  it  implies  in  large  classes  of  the  community  ! 
For  remember,  that  for  every  man  that  is  knocked  down 
and  robbed  in  our  streets,  there  must  have  been  before 
hand  a  thousand  souls  knocked  down  and  trampled  under 
foot  and  robbed  of  human  dignity  and  worth  ; — that 
for  every  victim  of  the  gallows,  there  are  ten  thousand 
men  tugging  at  the  rope  that  chokes  him  ;  and  they 
know  not  that  it  is  round  their  own  throat !  The  worst, 
infinitely  the  worst,  of  a  corrupt  government,  is  the  dread 
ful  consideration,  who  made  and  who  supports  it ;  the 
worst  of  all  the  crime,  violence  and  insecurity  is — that 
it  implies  so  much  ignorance,  desperation  and  reckless 
ness  behind  it  !  If  men  murder  when  bread  is  scarce, 
or  in  violent  and  unsettled  times,  or  in  communities 
ridden  with  priestcraft,  or  in  nations  oppressed  with 
vindictive  and  unjust  institutions  ;  if  degraded  Italy  and 
Spain  turn  out  their  bandits,  or  India  nourishes  her 
thugs  ;  if  France  raises  up  the  inventors  and  engineers 
14 


314        THE  RE- ADJUSTMENT  OF  FAITH. 

of  infernal  machines,  or  arms  the  hands  that  shoot  one 
archbishop  at  the  barricades  and  stab  another  at  the  al 
tar,  or  waylays  the  assassin  of  liberty  with  weapons 
caught  from  his  own  blood-stained  hands  and  treacher 
ous  arts — we  do  not  wonder.  Such  classes  and  such 
crimes  belong  to  a  humanity  pent  up  in  superstition, 
political  thraldom,  and  desperate  circumstances.  But 
the  violence  and  crime,  the  robbery  and  murder  of  a 
community  and  a  country  like  ours — comparatively  free, 
well-fed,  at  ease,  with  open  ways  for  labor  and  thought, 
with  quick  rewards  for  industry  and  virtue,  with  lavish 
opportunities  for  instruction  and  preferment,  with  every 
prize  open  to  every  man — seem  the  spontaneous  pro 
ducts  of  innate  depravity,  the  very  riot  of  reckless  folly 
— the  most  inexcusable,  hopeless  and  alarming  sort  of 
wickedness  !  And  what  a  matrix  of  moral  ignorance, 
and  blindness  and  sin,  has  this  now  molten  stream  of 
crime  ripened  in  ?  Can  we  be  easy  in  our  consciences 
or  hopeful  in  our  faith,  and  not  feel  that  we  have  got 
to  meet  this  dreadful  state  of  things  with  sacrifices  and 
sufferings — that  we  must  fill  out  what  remains  behind 
of  the  afflictions  of  Christ,  would  we  stay  the  flood  of 
public  corruption  and  redeem  the  souls  of  our  brethren  ? 
Kich  men  must  sacrifice  their  fortunes  in  this  work  ; 
strong  men  must  crucify  their  intellects  ;  loving  hearts 
must  pour  out  their  sympathies  ;  the  easy  must  forsake 
their  ease  ;  the  unoccupied  their  leisure  ;  woman  her 
fastidiousness  and  her  fashion  ;  the  young  their  care 
lessness  and  gayety — all  m,ust  join  in  the  work  of  ex 
piating  the  sins  of  our  people,  ransoming  the  guilty, 
redeeming  the  lost  here  at  our  doors.  We  must  ply 
with  tears  and  toil,  every  engine  of  redemption,  and 


THE    SUFFERING   CHRIST.  315 

afflict  ourselves  in  every  necessary  manner  to  abolish 
this  death  of  sin,  which  rests  like  the  curse  of  God 
upon  our  brothers  and  sisters — on  the  brutal  boyhood, 
the  abandoned  women,  the  hordes  of  idlers,  thieves  and 
beggars  ;  the  unschooled,  unchurched  and  unvisited  ; 
the  heathen  and  inhuman  classes  of  our  fellow-citizens, 
of  our  should-be  fellow-Christians.  The  public  and  the 
industrial  schools,  the  societies  of  employment,  the  hos 
pitals  and  charities,  the  means  of  political  reform,  the 
opportunities  of  private  influence,  the  teaching  of  all 
servants  to  read  and  write  by  the  hands  of  our  daugh 
ters  ;  the  resisting  of  excesses  in  dress,  in  manners,  in 
food  and  drink  ;  the  support  and  encouragement  of  all 
measures  which  soften,  enlighten  and  win  the  rude  and 
envious  ;  the  actual  superintendence  of  special  families, 
and  the  rescue  of  particular  persons  ;  these  are  the 
means  and  opportunities  still  left  to  us,  never  more 
open,  never  grander  since  Adam  fell  or  Christ  rose,  for 
filling  out  the  afflictions  of  our  Lord,  for  his  body's  sake 
— which  is  the  Church — of  which  we  must  see  that  all 
men  are  made  members.  Our  Calvary  is  the  mountain 
on  which  our  moral  intelligence  and  gracious*  privileges 
have  lifted  us,  in  the  midst  of  this  spiritual  wicked 
ness  and  destitution  !  Our  cross  is  the  stretching  of 
our  hands  for  the  nails  which  this  violence  will  drive — 
that  they  may  tear  us  innocent,  and  not  the  souls  of 
the  guilty  !  We  must  suffer,  suffer  in  the  sweat  of 
thoughtful  brains,  in  the  anguish  of  perplexed  and  pal 
pitating  hearts,  in  the  labor  and  sacrifices  of  contriving, 
sympathizing,  never- weary  and  never-despairing  exer 
tions  for  the  salvation  of  oar  community  and  race. 
And,  brethren,  we  must  learn,  like  Paul,  to  rejoice 


316  THE    RE-ADJUSTMENT    OF    FAITH. 

in  this  suffering  !  It  is  the  only  secret  of  victory  over 
the  world  and  ourselves.  The  key  to  joy  we  have  lost ! 
Sin  and  folly  had  broken  its  •  wards,  and  filled  up  its 
entrance-way.  But  suffering  is  still  within  our  power, 
and  in  our  hands.  Serenity,  satisfaction,  steadfast 
friends,  permanent  relations,  health,  kindred,  satisfying 
success,  gratified  ambition  !  Ah  !  ye  bright  illusions  ! 
phantoms  of  youth  and  inexperience  !  whither  have  ye 
gone  ?  All  faded  and  wrecked  !  But  suffering,  laboring 
for  the  race,  bearing  with  the  wrong-headed  and  the 
bad-hearted,  spending  and  being  spent  in  the  service 
of  humanity  and  Christ  and  God — suffering  !  Ah  ! 
thou  once  overlooked  and  spurned  form  !  cloaked  with 
the  pall  or  folded  in  the  shroud,  skeleton  at  the  feast, 
mocker  at  the  wine,  but  still  disguised  angel,  marred 
and  rejected  messenger  of  God — suffering  !  tkou  re- 
mainest,  and  proves!  our  only  constant  and  evermore 
precious  and  satisfying  friend  !  Yes  !  it  is  our  privi 
lege  to  suffer  !  And  woe  to  the  heart,  woe  !  woe  !  to 
the  heart,  that  spurns  that  cup  ;  that  knows  not  How 
to  suffer ;  that  refuses  to  suffer.  How  blessed  the 
sensibility  that  feels  the  woes  of  the  world,  and  carries 
them,  painfully  and  tenderly,  as  a  mother  bears  her 
sick  child  in  her  weary  but  clinging  and  grateful  arms  ! 
And,  believe  me,  no  great  good  is  done  without  suffer 
ing.  Out  of  its  agonies  have  come  the  works  of  genius, 
and  the  deeds  of  heroes  and  martyrs,  poems  and  refor 
mations,  discoveries  and  revelations  !  Beauty  and 
truth,  love  and  worth,  have  all  hung  on  the  cross,  and 
ripened  there,  as  on  their  natural  trellis,  into  the 
fruits  that  refresh  and  inspire  humanity.  Christ  has 
not  trodden  the  wine-press  alone.  Other  garments 


THE    SUFFERING    CHRIST.  3]  7 

have  been  dyed  in  blood;  and  the  world  will  not  follow 
any  colors  that  have  not  the  purple  stain  of  suffering 
in  their  folds.  Yes  !  and  it  must  be  vicarious  suffer 
ing,  a  suffering  not  in  one's  own  cause,  or  for  one's  own 
sake — a  suffering  not  in  the  service  of  greed,  ambition, 
self-preservation,  not  in  expiation  of  the  inexperience, 
folly,  or  ignorance  of  one's  own  heart  or  life,  but  a  suf 
fering  for  and  in  the  place  of  others — a  suffering  in 
behalf  of  principles,  which  are  the  property  of  humani 
ty  ;  of  institutions,  that  shelter  the  race  ;  of  hopes, 
that  are  the  heritage  of  the  -future  ;  or  of  sorrows, 
wrongs,  injuries,  misfortunes  and  crimes,  that  crush 
and  afflict  our  whole  generation. 

Such  sufferings  are  the  filling  up  of  that  which  is 
behind  of  the  afflictions  of  Christ,  and  they  are  for  his 
body's  sake,  which  is  the  Church.  It  is  the  law  of 
God's  universe  ;  the  innocent  must  suffer /or,  though 
not  as,  the  guilty  ;  the  lamb  must  die  for  the  wolf ; 
the  good  must  expiate  the  wretchedness  and  wicked- 
nels  of  the  bad  !  Suffering,  the  suffering  of  virtue, 
piety,  love,  must  creep  into  the  place  which  the  suffer 
ings  of  wrath,  of  selfishness,  of  sin  now  fill,  as  the 
secretions  of  some  mineral  pool  creep  into  the  rotting 
tissues  of  the  woody  knot  fallen  into  its  bosom,  and  con 
vert  it,  fibre  by  fibre,  line  by  line,  twist  by  twist,  into 
precious  stone — the  same,  yet  saved  from  decay,  glori 
fied,  and  made  immortal.  So,  suffering  is  suffering 
still  !  but  now  beautiful,  holy,  blessed,  and  full  of 
eternal  life. 

Thus  is  the  world  changing  into  the  Church,  which 
is  the  body  of  Christ  ;  the  brutal  suffering  of  its  sin 
ful  life — coarse,  cruel,  horrible — a  mass  of  writhing 


318  THE    RE-ADJUSTMENT    OF    FAITH. 

deformity,  and  shameful  corruption,  and  self-wrought 
violence — like  the  body  of  a  malefactor,  full  of 
black  and  cruel  blood,  with  marks  of  guilty  wounds 
and  disgraceful  sins,  the  gyves  of  the  jail,  and  the  rope 
of  the  hangman — gradually  changing  under  the  trans 
muting  and  redeeming  powers  of  our  Lord's  suffering 
followers  and  faithful  co-workers,  into  the  likeness  of 
the  dying  Christ,  bleeding  and  wounded  still,  suffering 
and  sorrowing  yet ;  but  oh  !  with  what  beauty  in  that 
melting  eye,  what  glory  on  that  thorn-CBOwned  brow, 
what  triumph  and  salvation  in  those  pierced  hands  and 
feet  ! 

Welcome  the  sufferings  of  innocency,  the  sacrifice 
of  love  !  Welcome  a  state  of  society,  a  world,  all 
whose  griefs  shall  be  those  of  sympathy,  all  its  wounds 
those  of  charity,  all  its  afflictions  those  of  submission  ! 
For  the  end  of  such  a  world  must  be  the  end  of  Christ's 
sufferings,  a  perfect  redemption  from  moral  evil,  and  a 
quick  ascension  into  the  perfect  joy  and  undimrned 
glory  of  the  city  of  God  in  heaven.  * 

FEBBDARY  1,  1857. 


SERMON  XX. 

.    CHRIST— "THE  HEAD  OF  ALL   PRINCIPALITY  AND  POWER." 

" the  head  of  all  principality  and  power." — COLOSSIANS  ii.  10. 

IN  the  present  discourse.  I  design  to  exhibit  the 

'  y  >£?• ' 

nature  and  influence  of  those  principalities  and  powers 
so  often  spoken  of  in  the  epistles,  in  a  language  vague 
and  vast,  and  fitted  to  excite  the  religious  imagination 
to  the  utmost.  And  this  I  shall  do,  not  by  a  fatiguing 
comparison  and  criticism  of  the  texts  in  which  these 
woyds  occur,  but  by  an  appeal  to  your  inmost  conscious 
ness — endeavoring  to  make  you  feel,  and  thus  recog 
nize  and  understand,  the  principalities  and  powers 
that  rule  and  largely  constitute  our  life. 

The  world  we  most  truly  live  in,  my  brethren,  is 
not  the  world  of  earth,  water,  and  sky  ;  nor  the  world 
of  men  and  women  and  children  ;  nor  the  world  of  im 
mediate  experience,  sensation,  and  thinking.  It  is  the 
world  of  spiritual  realities  and  spiritual  relations,  the 
world  of  principalities  and  powers,  with  a  history  as  old 
as  God's  own  being,  a  past  as  remote  as  the  unbegin- 
ning  eternity,  a  future  as  distant  as  unending  time  ; 
a  world  of  thoughts,  feelings,  tendencies,  influences, 


320  THE    RE- ADJUSTMENT    OF    FAITH. 

which  the  immediate  generations  that  occupy  the 
planet — important  as  their  action  or  influence  is — have 
only  a  very  small  part  in  originating  or  controlling. 
The  visible  inhabitants  of  the  globe — how  small  a  part 
are  they  of  the  minds  and  hearts  that  still  live  in  the 
hereditary  influences  they  exert,  in  the  impulses  they 
communicate,  in  the  thoughts  and  passions  they  ani 
mate  !  How  little  of  the  actual  philosophy,  science, 
art,  government,  religion,  manners — nay,  how  little  of 
the  total  civilization  of  the  nineteenth  century  is  our 
work,  due  to  our  unassisted  and  underived  minds,  or 
hearts,  or  wills  !  The  dead  govern  the  living.  The 
past  controls  the  present.  The  visible  generations  of 
men,  the  thrones  and  nationalities  and  populations, 
that  seem  to  regulate  affairs,  are  but  the  agents  and 
representatives  of  venerable  powers,  and  mighty  wills, 
and  great  experiences  withdrawn  from  view,  that  still 
truly  reign,  leaving  us  little  choice  in  action,  because 
communicating  to  us  the  most  decisive  impetus  and  di 
rection  of  their  own.  The  principalities  and  powers 
that  carry  on  this  very  age,  and  maintain  this  very  life 
of  our  own,  are  not  alone  or  chiefly  our  ideas,  our  pas 
sions,  our  wills.  We  are  not  the  groat  activities  of  the 
world  !  We  are  merely  the  instruments,  channels,  and 
vehicles  of  the  mighty  will  of  a  great  historical  past, 
doing  what  the  accumulated  passions,  desires,  purposes 
of  our  race  will  have  us  to  do — moulded,  shaped,  in 
spired  by  invisible  wills  and  voiceless  influences,  from 
the  whole  countless  myriads  of  humanity,  so  vastly 
mightier  than  the  petty  fraction  of  the  race  that  now 
possesses  the  earth. 

Does  it  often  enough  occur  to  us  to  think,  in  our 


CHRIST.  321 

skepticism  of  spiritual  realities,  how  profoundly  spirit 
ual  is  the  life  of  the  most  material  community,  or  of 
the  most  stupid  and  irreligious  individual  ?  We  are 
all — for  good  or  evil — living  under  the  perpetual  do 
minion  of  an  invisible  world.  For  the  evil  powers  and 
prejudices,  the  inherited  enmities  and  antipathies,  the 
superstitions  and  predilections  that  govern  the  lowest 
tribes  and  the  worst  men,  are  just  as  spiritual,  in  their 
lack  of  all  local  habitation  or  palpable  form,  and  in  their 
viewless  methods  of  influence,  as  the  Holy  Spirit  of  God, 
or  the*powers  of  the  world  to  come.  The  crimes  and 
vices  and  wickednesses,  the  political  tyrannies  and  false 
religions,  the  shocking  customs  and  terrible  maxims 
that  deform  the  world,  are  not  chiefly  the  products  of 
the  depravity  of  our  own  day.  They  are  the  result  of 
accumulated  powers  and  principalities  of  darkness,  that 
from  their  invisible  thrones  in  the  past,  still  sway  the 
unhappy  spirits  of  living  communities  with  an  irresisti 
ble  malice.  If  you  go  to  India,  and  find  there  a  vast 
population  under  the  religious  conviction  that  women 
must  be  kept  in  a  perpetual  state  of  mental  childhood, 
do  you  fancy  that  it  is  the  men  of  this  generation  that 
keep  those  women  in  that  degraded  state  ?  Is  it  not 
a  power  stronger  than  all  the  men  in  India,  or  all  the 
missionaries  in  India  ?  And  yet  it  is  a  purely  invisi 
ble  power  ;  the  power  of  an  idea  ;  a  false  idea,  a  preju 
dice,  a  spiritual  thing  ;  but  a  terrible  reality,  never 
theless  ! 

Do  you  imagine  that  it  is  Louis  Napoleon,  and  the 
king  of  Sardinia,  and  the  emperor  of  Austria,  who  are 
creating  and  making  the  doomfulness  of  this  general 
war  that  now  threatens  Europe  and  Asia  ?  Alas  ! 


322  THE    RE-ADJUSTMENT    OF    FAITH. 

that  terrible  logic  of  events — of  which  politicians  now 
speak — what  is  it  but  the  irresistible  power  and  reality 
of  national  antipathies,  ancient  grudges  that  taint  the 
very  blood  of  remote  generations,  passions  communi 
cated  by  mighty  men,  that  from  their  crumbling  urns 
still  sway  their  sceptres  of  ambition,  and  brandish  their 
swords  of  vengeance  or  conquest  ?  It  is  the  one  fright 
ful  thought  connected  with  this  already  opened  con 
flict,  that  the  principalities  and  powers  that  conduct  it 
are  invisible  ;  that  it  comes  against  the  will  of  existing 
rulers  and  generations,  a  fearful  necessity  of  foregone 
conclusions  in  a  wicked  past  ;  and  that  no  man  can 
tell  by  what  complicity  of  invisible  powers  the  heirs  of 
old  transgressors  may  be  forced  into  the  m£lt6  of  inimi 
cal  races  and  conflicting  ideas  ! 

Do  not  suppose,  my  brethren,  because  ideas,  super 
stitions,  national  hatreds,  are  unsubstantial  in  form, 
that  they  are  unreal  in  essence.  If  unrealities  can 
sway  and  cut  and  carve  the  world,  can  change  the  map 
of  Europe,  stop  national  industries,  and  occasion  the 
widest  misery,  in  what  attributes  of  reality  are  they  de 
ficient  ?  The  world  is  full  of  these  invisibje  principal 
ities  and  powers.  Could  the  spiritual  nerves  and  fibres 
— subtler  than  electric  wires — that  move  and  animate 
the  world,  be  made  visible,  in  what  a  complicated, 
busy,  and  far-reaching  network  of  powers  and  wills 
should  we  not  find  ourselves  immeshed  !  How  far  back 
would  many  of  these  lines  be  seen  to  lead,  and  in  what 
forgotten  hands  would  the  reins  that  still  control  the 
world  be  still  seen  firmly  grasped  !  Is  the  living  or  the 
dead  Napoleon  now  on  the  throne  of  France  ?  Is  it  the 
Italy  of  to-day,  or  of  Dante  and  Csesar,  that  is  spring- 


CHRIST.  323 

ing  to  its  feet  ?  You  may  call  these  powers  prejudices, 
shadows,  imaginations  !  I  call  the  spirits  and  the  ideas 
that  do  the  actual  work  of  the  world — whether  they  lie 
in  the  still  dust  of  their  graves  or  move  in  their  ruddy 
flesh — the  veritable  realities  of  to-day.  Powerful  pre 
judices,  influential  errors,  great  superstitions,  mighty 
names,  are  as  real  as  climates  and  soils,  mountains  and 
rivers  ;  for  they  characterize  the  moral  geography  of  the 
globe,  they  bound  nations,  they  make  wars,  they  estab 
lish  customs,  they  set  up  dynasties,  they  rule  posterity. 
The  visible  forces — the  present  people,  the  existing 
amount  of  mind,  and  will,  and  passion,  and  conscience 
in  the  world — form  not  a  tithe  of  the  real  world  ;  would 
not  account  for,  do  not  decide,  cannot  make  nor  un 
make,  that  mighty  world  of  principalities  and  powers, 
of  faiths  and  feelings,  of  social  tendencies  and  currents 
of  opinion,  in  the  midst  of  which  we  live  !  Instance 
our  own  government.  Let  the  names,  the  wills,  the 
inspirations  of  our  founders,  be  for  a  moment  withdrawn 
from  it,  and  it  could  not  stand  a  day  in  our  wisdom, 
patriotism,  and  care.  Instance  society  itself — its  foun 
dations  in  the  family  tie,  and  all  the  invisible  inherit 
ance  of  usage,  blessed  prejudice,  and  viewless  sanctity" 
that  give  it  power  !  Suppose  society  depended  on  the 
wisdom,  the  worth,  the  will  of  this  generation,  for  its 
existence  ?  That  is,  supposing  it  to  be  dissolved,  call 
on  the  worth,  will,  and  wisdom  of  this  generation  to 
reframe  it  and  set  it  a-going  upon  another  model,  and 
see  what  an  impossible  task  you  allot  to  the  incompe- 
tency  of  one  age  {  Or,  suppose  that  the  education  of  the 
world  were  dependent  alone  on  the  intentional  and  con 
scious  training  each  generation  gave  its  successor  !  Sup- 


324  THE    RE-ADJUSTMENT    OF    FAITH. 

pose,  in  short,  that  society  were  no  more  and  no  othei 
than  the  associated  people  now  in  the  world  ;  that  hu 
manity  were  no  more  and  no  other  than  the  men  and 
women  now  living  ;  that  law  were  no  more  and  no  other 
than  the  laws;  that  religion  were  no  more  and  no  other 
than  the  existing  worship  of  the  world  ;  and  the  Church 
and  Gospel  of  Christ  no  more  and  no  other  than  exist 
ing  religious  institutions  !  Why,  it  would  be  just  as 
mad  and  empty  a  notion  as  to  affirm  that  the  Missis 
sippi  river  is  that  amount  of  water  now  in  its  bed,  and 
not  that  mighty  configuration  of  the  globe  which  affords 
a  perpetual  channel  to  floods,  that  constantly  renew 
themselves  from  the  ever-busy  mists  that  rise  from  the 
ocean,  descend  in  snows  on  the  mountains,  and  melt 
into  the  bosom  of  that  Father  of  waters  ! 

Men  can  manufacture  fountains,  but  not  rivers  ; 
they  can  make  monuments,  but  not  mountains  ;  and  so 
they  may  build  cities,  but  riot  society  ;  they  may  create 
laws,  but  not  law  ;  they  may  erect  churches,  but  not 
the  Church.  It  takes  divine  powers  to  do  any  creative 
work,  and  the  family,  the  State,  the  nation,  the  Gos 
pel,  the  Church,  are  creations,  not  conventions,  agree 
ments,  and  compacts.  They  are  the  principalities  and 
powers  that  rule  the  world  for  its  good,  subject  as  it  is 
to  many  other  principalities  and  powers  of  darkness  and 
sin,  that  are  mightier  in  malignity  than  the  palpable 
evils  and  wickednesses  of  the  world.  The  good  and  evil 
in  this  world,  my  brethren,  are  neither  of  them  most 
potent  as  immediate  and  palpable  things.  If  we  had 
only  to  contend  with  bad  men  and  women,  it  were  a 
comparatively  easy  struggle  ;  "  but  we  wrestle  not 
against  flesh  and  blood,  but  against  principalities, 


CHRIST.  325 

against  powers,  against  the  rulers  of  the  darkness  of 
this  world,  against  spiritual  wickedness  in  high  places,"  r 
It  is  the  mighty  selfishness  of  a  gross  and  degraded  past 
history  ;  it  is  the  malignant  superstition  of  a  long- 
established  heathenism  ;  it  is  the  tremendous  authority 
of  diabolic  genius  that  intoxicated  the  past  with  its 
evil  charms  ;  it  is  the  thraldom  of  great  conjurors  in 
malice  and  pride — men  like  Napoleon,  who  bewitched 
the  world  with  the  admiration  of  glory,  or  like  Moham 
med,  who  built  an  altar  out  of  the  burning  senses  of 
his  race  ;  it  is  the  organized  and  instituted  selfishness, 
sensuality,  and  malice  of  the  whole  past,  that  corrupts 
the  very  veins,  dwells  in  the  brain,  and  lives  at  the 
heart  of  the  present  generation,  and  makes  the  invisible 
powers  of  evil  vastly  more  fearful  and  hopeless  to  con 
tend  with  than  the  actual  and  conscious  dispositions  of 
living  sinners,  or  the  real  and  overt  acts  of  present 
wrong. 

Ought  we  not  to  realize  that  our  souls  are  the  plat 
form  on  which  these  invisible  powers  and  principalities, 
for  evil  and  for  good,  are  now  continually  confronting 
their  forces  ?  Would  not  our  spiritual  position  and 
our  lives,  in  that  aspect,  have  some  greater  dignity  and 
awfulness  in  our  eyes  than  when  we  consider  ourselves, 
as  it  were,  a  generation  without  any  relations  to  the 
past  or  the  future — beings  whose  natures  have  nothing 
in  them  but  seeds  and  elements  ;  not  also  the  old  and 
mighty  life  for  good  and  evil  of  the  past  !  I  stand 
awestruck  before  this  astonishing  relation  I  bear  to  the 
common  humanity,  of  which  I  form  a  part.  I  find  my 

1  Eph.  vi.  12. 


32G  THE    RE-ADJUSTMENT    OF    FAITH. 

nature  is  not  mere  private  will,  intellect,  heart,  but 
that  I  am  also  the  subject  of  mighty  wills,  intellects, 
and  hearts,  both  good  and  evil,  that  possess  me,  and 
either  intoxicate,  pervert  and  degrade,  or  inspire,  en 
large,  and  elevate  my  soul.  I  find  that  as  the  earth 
has  a  necessary  motion  of  its  own  all  the  while  that  we 
move  freely  upon  it,  so  our  nature  has  a  compulsory 
motion  of  its  own,  while  our  characters  have  their  own 
independent  motion,  too.  I  find  that  I  am  the  subject 
of  ideas,  affections,  powers,  that  are  not  me  nor  mine, 
infinitely  greater  than  I  am,  and  the  source  of  all  that 
is  best  and  noblest  in  me,  or  worst  -and  most  perilous. 
I  discover  that  my  boasted  independence  is  a  very  small 
domain — the  freedom  of  a  bird,  that  occupies  a  fixed 
stratum  of  air,  a  mile  or  two  thick,  in  an  infinite  and 
forbidden  space,  and  seems  to  itself  only,  to  have  the 
liberty  of  the  universe.  But  I  finally  rejoice  in  the 
glorious  discovery,  that  what  I  thought  at  first  my  in 
significance  is  my  grandeur  ;  what  I  thought  my  loss  is 
my  gain  ;  that  in  place  of  my  poor  private  life.  God 
has  destined  me  for  the  great  life  of  humanity  ;  that  in 
place  of  my  own  freedom,  he  has  given  me  his  ;  that 
instead  of  a  soul  innocent  because  inexperienced,  he  has 
communicated  to  me  a  soul  fraught  with  the  life  of  the 
whole  race,  and  connected  with  the  whole  universe — 
with  memories,  influences,  powers  and  principalities  of 
good  and  evil,  angels  and  devils,  at  work  upon  it  ;  that 
I  am  endowed  with  the  knowledge  of  good  and  evil, 
both  tempted  and  inspired,  and  have  spirits  of  evil  for 
enemies,  and  greater  spirits  of  good  for  allies — with  the 
HEAD  of  all  principalities  and  powers  for  my  Saviour 
and  immortal  friend. 


CHRIST.  327 

0 

Such  a  position  would  be  terrible  and  awful,  if  the 
powers  of  evil  were  equal  to  the  powers  of  good.  But 
while  God  is  on  the  throne  of  the  universe  this  can 
never  be  ;  and  while  Christ  is  his  great  spiritual  repre 
sentative  and  the  Gospel  continues  to  be  "  the  power 
of  God,"  we  have  nothing  to  fear,  if  we  accept  our  de 
liverer,  and  trust  "  our  high  fortress  and  tower  of  de 
fence."  "  For  I  am  persuaded,  that  neither  death,  nor 
life,  nor  angels,  nor  principalities,  nor  powers,  nor  things 
present,  nor  things  to  come,  nor  height,  nor  depth,  nor 
any  other  creature,  shall  be  able  to  separate  us  from 
the  love  of  God  which  is  in  Christ  Jesus,  our  Lord."  ' 

Christ  is  "  the  head  of  all  principality  and  power." 
Christianity,  which  is  the  name  for  his  influence,  the 
Church,  which  is  the  channel  of  his  power,  has  more 
determining  sway  upon  the  thoughts,  customs,  and 
character  of  men,  and  has  had  for  eighteen  hundred 
years,  than  any  single  element  or  impulse  in  history  or 
civilization. 

In  Jesus  Christ  there  bVoke  into  the  world  a  mighty 
and  shaping  influence,  a  holy  will,  a  spiritual  sover 
eignty,  an  illuminating,  warning,  inspiring  principle  of 
mingled  thought,  affection,  and  volition,  which  was, 
among  the  other  moral  and  spiritual  influences  at  work 
upon  the  world  of  feeling  and  opinion,  what  the  mighty 
gulf-stream  is  among  the  other  currents  of  the  ocean — 
changing  the  temperature  of  the  most  distant  seas, 
ameliorating  the  climates  of  far-off  boreal  shores,  and 
modifying  the  navigation  and  the  commerce  of  the 
globe.  We  often  dwell  upon  what  the  world  is  doing 

1  Rom.  viii.  38,  39. 


328  THE    RE-ADJUSTMENT    OF    FAITH. 

for  the  Gospel,  to  propagate  and  diffuse  its  influence. 
We  talk  of  upholding  and  supporting  it.  We  make 
serious  question  of  its  evidences,  are  alarmed  at  the 
doubts  that  assail  its  origin  and  reality.  Would  it  not 
be  better  for  us  to  consider  what  the  Gospel  is  now 
doing,  and  has  always  been  doing,  for  the  world — what 
a  self-asserting,  self-proving  reality  it  is — how  truly 
and  deeply  it  confirms  itself,  and  how  mightily  it  shapes 
the  thoughts  and  destinies  of  men  ? 

Will  you  reply  that  false  philosophies,  and  religions 
not  of  divine  origin,  have  manifested  a  similar,  if  not 
an  equal,  power  ?  Will  you  point  me  to  the  tremen 
dous  sway  of  the  Oriental  fatalisms,  to  the  religions  of 
China  and  India,  to  the  still  potent  sceptre  of  Moham 
med  ?  I  should  be  mad  to  deny  the  pertinency  of  your 
rejoinder.  Nor,  as  the  advocate  of  Christ's  headship, 
have  I  any  need  to  do  it.  Who  thinks  .it  necessary  to 
question  the  tremendous  influence  of  powerful  error,  of 
organized  evil,  of  passionate  malignity,  of  grand  and 
awful  superstition  ?  It  is  a  childish  and  undignified 
philosophy  of  history  and  humanity  that  allots  power 
and  influence  in  this  world  and  in  humanity,  only  to 
what  is  good  ;  that  denies  any  continuity  of  evil,  any  he 
reditary  sway  to  dangerous  arid  misguiding  powers. 
There  is  no  appetite,  no  faculty  of  soul  or  sense,  no 
imagination  nor  impulse  of  which  humanity  is  ca 
pable,  that  may  not  by  a  mastering  spirit  be  evoked 
with  such  power,  and  organized  with  such  effect,  as 
to  influence  and  mould  whole  generations  and  races 
of  men.  Dynasties,  social  systems,  religions,  have  been 
built  up  by  mighty  spirits,  giants  in  will  and  in  im 
pulse,  upon  any  and  every  quality  in  our  nature — 


CHRIST.  329 

now  on  fear,  then  on  hope,  now  on  the  senses,  then  on 
the  imagination,  here  on  the  ignorance,  and  there  on 
the  intellect  of  men.  And  he  would  be  a  very  unskilled 
and  superficial  decipherer  of  the  moral  and  spiritual 
hieroglyphics  of  history,  who  so  read  the  past  as  to  de 
clare  that  any  broad  stream  of  religious,  social,  or  po 
litical  influence,  determining  the  character  of  ages  and 
nations,  had  come  from  a  feeble  fountain,  or  did  not 
have  a  mighty  well-head  of  thought  and  will  for  its 
source.  The  prejudices  which  once  denied  Mohammed, 
Confucius,  or  other  founders  of  false,  or  merely  human 
religions,  to  be  men  of  prodigious  and  earnest  enthusi 
asm,  true  principalities  and  powers  in  the  development 
of  humanity,  are  fast  disappearing.  We  do  not,  we 
must  not,  deny  that  effects  so  mighty  were  due  to 
causes  of  tremendous  efficacy.  A  conjunction  of  an  ex 
traordinary  personality  with  some  equally  extraordinary 
want  or  sensibility  of  our  nature  at  the  time,  is  neces 
sary  to  account  for  every  great  spiritual  or  religious 
movement.  As  one  illustration,  take  Mormonism — the 
only  faith  which,  on  any  considerable  scale,  we  have 
had  a  chance  to  see  the  origin  and  growth  of,  in  our 
own  day — and  certainly  the  most  characteristic  and 
philosophically  curious  phenomenon  in  the  history  of 
the  nineteenth  century — the  relapse  of  modern  civiliza 
tion  into  its  original  barbarism  ;  the  untimely  return 
of  patriarchal  ideas  ;  the  reappearance  of  Oriental  weak 
nesses  in  the  Western  wilderness  ;  exploded,  effete  po 
lygamy,  springing  into  fresh  vigor  in  the  new  world  and 
the  nineteenth  century,  under  the  sanction  of  a  new 
revelation  !  We  shall  wonder  less  at  this,  if  we  con 
sider  what  has  always  deeply  impressed  me;  that  the 


330  THE    RE-ADJUSTMENT    OF    FAITH. 

most  extraordinary  triumph  of  mingled  reason  and  reli 
gion  ever  achieved  over  the  human  race,  was  the  estab 
lishment  of  monogamy  as  the  law  of  civilized  society. 
Polygamy,  either  under  the  protection  of  law  and  legal 
forms,  or  in  spite  of  them,  is  the  impulse  and  ever 
threatening  tendency  of  the  human  race.  Against  this 
surge  of  passion  Christianity  erected  her  invisible  but 
mighty  breakwater,  and  civilization  has  fortified  this 
sacred  sea-wall.  Mormonism  is  the  frightful  leakage 
of  this  dyke — a  moral  crevasse — the  giving  way  at  a 
point  of  ignorance  and  stupidity  in  the  sacred  levee  that 
dammed  out  this  ever-threatening  stream.  Divine 
Providence,  perhaps,  saw  in  the  periodical  reaction 
which  overtakes  the  sentiment  of  sacredness  in  the 
marriage  bond — and  which  is  now,  under  more  decent 
forms  than  Mormonism,  but  from  the  same  impulse, 
agitating  society  at  large — the  necessity  of  exhibiting 
the  effect  of  polygamy  under  modern  conditions  and  in 
the  western  hemisphere,  in  order  to  warn  and  save  our 
general  civilization  from  so  dreadful  a  peril.  The  vig 
orous  and  unscrupulous  minds  that  seized  upon  this 
ever-latent  tendency  and  converted  it  into  a  religion, 
are  truly  groat  in  their  sagacity,  will,  and  administra 
tive  faculties,  and  I  doubt  not  that  the  limited  channel 
in  which  their  influence  runs,  may  serve  to  sewer  and 
empty  into  the  wilderness  the  feculence  and  pruriency 
of  our  modern  disloyalty  to  the  family  staie.  Mur- 
monism  is  spiritism  and  Free-loveism  in  their  natural 
connection,  logically  carried  out — the  fine  theory  done 
into  coarse  practice — the  sophistry  and  subtlety  of  rest 
less  Socialism  reduced  to  practical  absurdity,  and  made 
palpably  disgusting,  because  thoroughly  obvious.  Thus 


CHRIST.  331 

it  is  that  the  evil  powers  and  influences  of  the  world 
get  to  be  organized  principalities  and  powers — tremen 
dous  engines  of  evil. 

But,  because  we  do  not  deny  the  reality  of  the 
mighty  founders  of  false  religions  and  false  civilizations, 
nor  call  them  divine,  because  they  were  great  in  their 
effects  ;  because  we  do  not  worship  power  and  success, 
and  deify  all  the  principalities  that  have  swayed  the 
world,  let  us  not  be  drawn  from  the  ground  that 
Christianity  is  of  God,  and  that  Christ  is  the  liead  of 
principalities  and  powers,  and  proved  so  by  the  place 
his  person  and  influence  has  taken  in  the  world.  It  is 
not  merely  the  greatness  and  extent  of  his  influence, 
but  the  nature  of  it,  it  is  not  his  success,  but  the 
character  of  his  success,  that  establishes  this  point ; 
and  that  influence  and  that  success  have  always  been 
on  the  side  of  truth,  goodness,  peace,  order,  brotherly 
love,  superiority  to  the  senses,  purity  of  life  and  devo 
tion  to  duty.  That  influence  and  success  have  always 
assimilated  with,  accompanied,  strengthened,  and  in 
spired,  when  they  did  not  wholly  occasion  and  cause, 
the  movements  of  liberty,  knowledge,  truth,  and  pro 
gress.  The  track  of  the  Gospel  has  been  the  path  of 
civilization  ;  its  triumphs  have  been  the  emancipation 
of  serfs  and  slaves,  the  elevation  of  woman,  the  growth 
of  equality  among  men,  the  reign  of  law,  the  progress 
of  knowledge,  and  the  increase  of  peace.  Its  institu 
tions  have  been  the  refuge  of  innocency,  learning  and 
worth,  in  times  of  violence  and  wickedness.  And  al 
though  the  Church  is  spotted  and  stained  with  the 
mire  and  the  blood  of  the  ages  through  which  it  has 
passed,  it  has  been,  like  Christ  himself  on  his  way  to 


332  THE    RE-ADJUSTMENT    OF    FAITH. 

that  cross  that  saved  the  world,  clothed  not  in  its  own 
chosen  robes  of  purity  and  love,  but  arrayed  in  such 
garments  as  its  crucifiers  have  given  it — marred  and 
mocked,  yet  always  laboring,  and  most  effectually,  for 
the  salvation  of  its  enemies  and  the  improvement  of  its 
half-enlightened  friends.  Christ's  influence,  called  the 
Church,  has  poured  a  pure  and  purifying  stream  into  a 
polluted  and  polluting  channel,  and  it  has  not  been 
easy  to  distinguish  between  the  feculence  of  the  chan 
nel  and  the  filth  of  the  stream,  except  by  observing 
that  wherever  Christianity  has  poured,  it  has,  sooner 
or  later,  made  civilization,  however  turbid  at  the  start, 
run  clear  in  the  end. 

My  brethren,  amid  the  evil  principalities  and  powers 
that  are  still  influencing  the  world  and  above  them  all 
— amid  the  good  principalities  and  powers  that  are 
helping  us  on,  arid  above  them  all — is  the  head  of  all 
principality  and  power,  Christ  and  Christianity,  a  prin 
cipality  and  power,  the  immeasurable  significance  and 
value  of  which  cannot  be  exaggerated,  and  which  it 
becomes  us  most  gratefully  and  humbly  to  adore  and 
glorify.  I  wish  you  to  feel  that  this  saving  power  is 
mightier  than  your  wills  ;  that  it  is  a  glorious,  an  ac 
tive  reality,  the  occasion  and  cause  of  all  that  is  best 
in  your  convictions,  your  faith,  your  hope,  your  trust. 
I  wish  to  feel  with  you  that  when  we  speak  of  the 
Gospel,  we  do  not  speak  merely  of  a  book,  but  of  a 
power  ;  not  of  a  dead  piece  of  history,  but  of  a  living 
fountain  of  spiritual  influence.  I  wish  to  feel  with  you 
that  the  Church  is  not  a  building,  nor  an  organization 
of  individuals,  not  your  Church,  nor  our  Chureh,  but 
the  grand  embodiment  of  Christ's  will  and  Christ's 


CHKIST.  333 

/ 

truth,  inspired  by  his  authority  and  his  heart,  fed  with 
continued  life  from  his  Spirit,  and  invigorated  with  the 
prayers,  the  faith,  the  blessings,  the  experiences  of  all 
who  have  joined  it  in  past  ages,  and  who  now  lend  it 
their  influence  and  power  in  heaven.  The  Church  is 
alive  !  If  the  state  live  not  in  one  generation,  if  the 
family  live  not  in  one  household,  but  in  that  continuous 
and  vital  unity  which  a  common  humanity  allows  and 
secures,  how  much  more  the  Church  ?  The  question, 
how  far  one  generation  can  bind  the  faith,  the  con 
science,  the  pecuniary  responsibility  of  another,  is  a 
question  mainly  asked  by  shallow  political  and  spiritual 
philosophers.  The  life  of  humanity  is  one.  Every  age 
inherits  the  responsibilities  of  its  predecessors^  as  every 
noble  son  inherits  his  father's  honest  debts,  along  with 
his  fortune.  To  be  jealous  of  the  past,  to  think  we  de 
rive  all  our  strength  from  ourselves,  and  all  our  weak 
ness  from  our  connection  with  it,  is  nearly  the  precise 
opposite  of  the  truth.  Those  are  greatest  who  know 
most  of,  and  receive  most  from,  the  past ;  who  are  best 
acquainted  with  the  principalities  and  powers  of  the 
world,  and  welcome  in  the  largest  measure  of  their 
good  influence,  while  most  strenuously  resisting  their 
evil.  It  is  the  great  weakness  of  the  unread  in  history, 
the  unenlightened  in  the  fellowship  and  communion  of 
recorded  thought  and  departed  spirits,  to  indulge  in 
original,  and  crude,  and  thin  speculations.  The  mere 
instincts  of  the  utterly  unthinking,  who  carry  in  their 
organizations,  and  in  the  shaping  influence  of  their 
very  blood,  or  derive  from  the  social  atmosphere,  much 
of  the  wisdom  of  the  past,  are  more  sound  and  saving 
than  the  speculations  of  minds  that,  on  discovering 


334  THE    RE-ADJUSTMENT    OF    FAITH. 

themselves  to  be  individuals,  immediately  set  up  on 
their  own  account,  dissolve  partnership  with  their  fel 
low-men,  sign  off  from  institutions — the  family,  the 
state,  the  Church — and  attempt  to  live  in  their  own 
wisdom,  will,  and  might.  But  if  there  be  one  folly 
greater  than  another,  it  is  in  our  day,  the  attempt  to 
pronounce  the  Gospel  outworn  ;  Christ  a  mere  name 
among  other  great  names  ;  Christianity  a  superstition, 
and  the  Church  a  prison  for  the  intellect,  and  a  strait- 
jacket  for  the  will.  It  is  the  Church  that  is  now  free 
ing  the  Churches  !  It  is  Christ  that  continually  puri 
fies  Christianity  !  It  is  the  largeness  and  nobility  he 
teaches  and  inspires,  that  is  forever  widening  the  bonds 
of  charity  and  intelligence.  Summon  pure  Naturalism, 
and  exhibit,  if  you  can,  in  her  doctrines,  a  spirit  of 
charity,  toleration  and  breadth,  in  worshippers  of  sci 
ence  and  law,  such  as  the  Gospel  cherishes  !  The  dei- 
fiers  of  law  are  among  the  narrowest  of  philosophers. 
What  they  usually  mean  by  law,  is  the  few  favorite 
laws  they  choose  to^  recognize,  as  if  the  laws  of  God  and 
nature  were  not  infinite  in  number,  and  did  not  include 
spiritual  influences,  and  miracles,  and  social  institu 
tions  !  Do  you  suppose  there  are  no  laws  governing 
what  we  call  exceptions,  because  we  do  not  know  the 
law  for  them  ?  The  eddies  are  as  much  under  law  as 
the  main  stream  ;  and  the  unnatural  is  often  only  a 
name  for  our  ignorance.  Those  who  bring  us  the  first 
volume  of  God's  revelation,  and  deny  the  value  of  any 
other,  need  not  boast  their  breadth.  We  accept  that, 
and  rejoice  besides  in  every  successive  volume  he  pleases 
to  issue,  whether  it  be  called  God  in  History,  or  God 
in  Christianity.  Those  who  deny  the  Church  its  place, 


CHRIST.  335 

because  they  see  so  fine  a  place  of  worship  in  outward 
nature,  have  yet  to  learn  that  the  love  and  the  worship 
of  nature  is  itself  the  fruit  of  that  sensibility  which 
Christianity  has  communicated.  The  whole  heathen 
literature  has  not  a  single  recognition  of  what  we  call 
"  the  landscape "  in  it,  and  the  enjoyment  of  God  in 
his  works  is  a  Jewish  and  a  Christian  satisfaction,  due, 
above  all  things,  to  the  influence  of  instituted  and 
organized  faith. 

Open  your  hearts  and  minds,  then,  to  the  Head  of 
all  principality  and  power  !  Expect  inspiration  and 
salvation  from  your  faith  in  Christ,  your  welcome  of 
his  spirit,  your  fellowship  with  his  disciples,  your  com 
munion  with  his  life,  your  union  with  his  Church  ! 
Already,  in  spite  of  your  indifference  and  distrust, 
Christ  is  saving  you,  and  blessing  you  !  Already  the 
Church  encloses  and  comforts  and  feeds  you.  How 
much  better  and  more  thorough,  and  blessed  its  influ 
ence,  if  you  would,  with  all  your  hearts  and  minds  and 
wills,  yield  yourselves  to  Christ's  inspiration  !  "  For 
ye  are  complete  in  him,  which  is  the  head  of  all  princi 
pality  and  power/'  "  Beware,  lest  any  man  spoil  you 
through  philosophy  and  vain  deceit,  after  the  tradition 
of  men,  after  the  rudiments  of  the  world,  and  not  after 
Christ.  For  in  him  dwelleth  all  the  fulness  of  the  Grod- 
head,  bodily." 

MAY  21,  1859. 


V. 

THE    HOLY    SPIRIT    AND    THE    CHURCH. 


15 


V. 

THE  HOLY  SPIRIT  AND  THE  CHURCH. 


SERMON  XXI. 

THE  SOUL'S   RENEWAL— A  NEW-YEAR'S   SERMON. 

"  Create  in  me  a  clean  heart,  0  God,  and  renew  a  right  spirit  with  me." 

Ps.  li.  10. 

TfiE  first  Sabbath  of  the  New  Year  has  returned  to 
us,  and  we  are  here  to  welcome  it,  and  to  receive  the 
blessing  it  offers.  Yesterday  we  celebrated  the  arrival 
of  the  New  Year  in  our  homes  ;  to-morrow  we  shall 
mark  it  in  our  places  of  business  ;  to-day  we  observe  it 
in  our  sanctuaries.  Yesterday  we  asked  ourselves,  who 
were  missing  and  who  were  spared  in  our  domestic  cir 
cles  ;  what  friends  had  gone  from  the  greeting  of  our 
eyes  and  the  pressure  of  our  hands  ;  from  whom  we 
heard  no  more  the  New- Year's  wish,  and  who  were  still 
left  to  pour  that. affectionate  salutation  into  our  ears  ! 
To-morrow  we  may  ask  ourselves  how  we  stand  with 
the  world  ;  what  losses  we  have  made,  and  what  gains  ; 
how  much  of  our  custom  has  gone,  and  how  much  re 
mains  ;  what  we  have  to  fear,  and  what  to  hope,  as 


340  THE    RE-ADJUSTMENT    OF    FAITH. 

we  ponder  the  annual  balance  of  our  accounts.  To-day 
the  more  important  and  pregnant  consideration  is,  what 
the  year  that  is  past  has  done  for  our  souls  ;  how  it 
leaves  us  in  our  relations  with  our  God  ;  what  the  open 
ing  year  says  to  us  as  moral  and  spiritual  beings,  pass 
ing  through  time  to  eternity,  through  life  to  immortal 
ity.  Not,  my  brethren,  that  our  domestic,  our  religious, 
and  our  business  affairs,  are  separate  or  separable  inter 
ests  ;  not  that  our  experiences,  our  successes  and  re 
verses,  our  joys  and  trials,  at  the  hearth-stone  and  at 
the  counting-room,  are  not  part  and  parcel  of  our  spir 
itual  life,  educational  in  their  aim  and  in  their  effect  ; 
not  that  the  times  and  seasons  as  sickly  or  sanative,  as 
peaceful  or  warlike,  as  prosperous  or  adverse,  do  not  re 
flect  themselves  in  the  sky  of  the  soul ;  but  that  our 
religious  interests  are  our  supreme  interests,  to  which 
our  domestic  and  our  commercial  are  alike  subordinate 
and  auxiliary  ;  and  that,  however  we  may  have  suf 
fered  or  prospered  in  the  health  of  our  households,  or 
the  condition  of  our  affairs,  we  have  truly  suffered  and 
truly  prospered,  only  as  the  beginning  of  the  New  Year 
finds  us  better  or  worse  men  and  women — nearer  to,  or 
farther  from,  our  God  and  our  Saviour. 

Before  taking  up  the  main  question,  a  few  words 
are  due,  on  the  score  of  patriotism  and  citizenship,  to 
our  civic,  social  and  commercial  condition,  at  this  sea 
son  of  review.  In  respect  of  the  public  health,  the 
mortality  of  our  own  community,  the  safety  of  our  own 
households,  we  have  much  to  be  thankful  for  in  review 
ing  the  past  year.  While  pestilence  has  severely  visit 
ed  our  Southern  cities  and  coasts,  we  have,  amid  many 
fears,  escaped  all  contagious  disorders.  And  two  events 


THE    SOUL'S   RENEWAL.  341 

of  much  consequence  to  the  future  safety  of  our  city, 
mark  the  departure  of  the  old  year  :  the  proposed  re 
moval  of  the  Quarantine  to  a  safe  and  distant  anchor 
age,  and  the  establishment  of  a  Sanatory  Association, 
to  be  devoted  to  the  carrying  of  all  needful  measures  of 
reform  in  the  cleansing,  ventilating,  and  sewering  of 
our  streets,  and  the  regulation  of  the  tenant  houses  oc 
cupied  by  more  than  half  our  total  population.  If  to 
this  we  add  the  rapid  forwarding  of  the  Central  Park, 
which  this  very  next  spring  will  begin  to  be  in  use,  and 
afford  a  most  needed  resort  for  the  leisure  of  our  pent- 
up  population,  we  may  mark  the  present  as  a  season 
very  flattering  to  the  future  health  of  our  community. 
It  is  one  of  the  few  encouraging  things  in  our  municipal 
affairs,  that  an  enterprise  of  such  magnitude  and  preg 
nancy  as  the  Central  Park — so  essential  to  the  highest 
interests  of  the  city — should  thus  far  have  escaped  the 
opposition  and  perversion  of  demagogues,  and  been  able 
to  establish  itself  in  the  confidence  and  affections  of  the 
whole  people.  Nothing  can  be  more  intimately  con 
nected  with  the  moral  and  spiritual  interests  of  com 
munities  than  the  state  of  the  public  health.  Pes 
tilence  is  frightfully  demoralizing,  and  a  filthy  and 
over-crowded  population  makes  morals  and  piety  impos 
sible.  Drunkenness  and  lust  are  the  inevitable  attend 
ants  on  a  poisoned  air.  Clean  streets,  abundance  of 
pure  water,  good  drainage,  open  squares,  well-lighted 
and  well-ventilated  tenant  houses,  economical  convey 
ances  to  the  neighboring  country,  innocent  amusements 
within  the  reach  of  all,  cheap  bread — these  are  the  pri 
mary  external  conditions  of  a  virtuous,  because  a  healthy 
and  happy,  community. 


342  THE    RE-ADJUSTMENT    OF    FAITH. 

These  things  do  not  make  people  moral  and  reli 
gious,  but  they  give  education  and  religion  their  most 
favorable  conditions  of  influence  ;  they  are  the  first 
things  to  be  looked  after,  not  as  ends,  but  as  means  ; 
not  as  results,  but  as  conditions.  But  I  do  not  propose 
to  dwell  upon  them  now. 

In  respect  to  the  commercial  record  of  the  year,  no 
doubt  it  must  be  called  a  year  of  great  disaster  ;  of 
enormous  losses  and  unexpected  disappointments  ;  of 
general  depression  and  universal  anxiety.  I  suppose 
the  general  balance-sheet  looks  as  discouragingly  as  it 
has  done  any  New  Year's  Day  this  twenty  years  past. 
The  universal  panic  of  eighteen  months  ago  left  such 
paralysis,  timidity  and  distrust  behind  it,  that  the  real 
causes  of  business  depression  have  been  doubly  aggra 
vated,  and  their  effects  greatly  protracted.  The  poor 
harvest  of  the  West,  due  to  the  floods  and  hurricanes 
of  last  spring,  has  crippled  our  best  customer  ;  manu 
factures  lie  crushed  beneath  a  policy  which  our  legisla- 
lators  seem  not  free  enough  from  party  theories  to 
abandon  ;  and  commerce  finds  her  ships  empty  and 
rotting  at  the  wharves.  I  suppose  an  untold  degree  of 
mental  distress  and  anxiety  has  afflicted  our  merchants 
the  past  year,  the  more,  perhaps,  from  the  general  and 
brave  efforts  made  to  keep  up  appearances,  and  go 
boldly  over  the  sandy  bar  of  panic,  scraping  the  bot 
tom,  but  not  lowering  the  top-sails,  much  less  casting 
the*  anchor.  I  have  no  doubt  that  the  dreadful  pressure 
of  the  last  year  has  consolidated  the  foundations  of  our 
commercial  credit,  and  that  those  who,  by  every  sacri 
fice,  have  maintained  honor  and  faith,  are,  though 
stripped  of  nearly  every  thing  else,  in  a*  condition  to 


THE    SOUL'S    RENEWAL.  343 

reap  a  glorious  harvest  on  the  inevitable  renewal  of 
business,  upon  the  succession  of  two  or  three  fair  crops. 
I  believe  in,  and  predict,  a  season  of  prosperity,  setting 
in  before  the  second  return  of  this  anniversary,  which 
shall  atone  for  the  losses  and  anxieties  of  the  two  years 
of  paralysis  which  have'  preceded  this  date.  And  I 
hope  that  the  lesson  of  the  past  year  will  not  be  lost — 
namely,  the  peril  of  living  so  thoroughly  up  to  the  last 
notch  of  our  ability,  as  to  render  a  year  of  commercial 
disaster  one  of  the  utmost  strain  in  the  whole  economy 
of  life  ;  for  a  general  domestic  and  social  machinery, 
adapted  only  to  the  full  tide  of  success,  can  be  kept 
a-going  at  the  ebb  of  our  fortunes,  only  at  the  sacrifice 
of  temper,  happiness,  and  almost  of  honesty.  Un 
doubtedly  we  have  set  our  standard  of  living  too  high. 
Insensibly 'the  whole  community  is  strained  by  the  high 
pitch  the  leaders  of  it  have  taken.  Nobody  is  to  blame 
in  particular,  and  few  individuals  can  venture  to  resist 
a  general  custom.  But  that  an  over-expensive,  showy, 
self-indulgent,  ostentatious  and  uncomfortable  style 
prevails  among  us,  to  an  extent  not  found  in  other 
cities,  cannot,  I  think,  be  denied.  Is  it  necessary  that 
our  business  should  be  done  in  palaces  of  marble,  or 
that  our  homes  should  be  so  very  grand  and  stately  ? 
I  am  afraid  we  are  sacrificing  too  much  of  the  substance 
to  the  show — too  much  reality  to  an  empty  seeming. 

Permit  me  to  remind  you,  that  if  you  find  your  own 
capital  seriously  impaired^  the  industrious  poor  find  their 
little  reserves  entirely  gone  by  the  waste  of  the  last 
year,  and  that  -a  more  serious,  if  a  less  open  distress, 
is,  without  the  unexpected  relief  of  a  mild  winter,  likely 
to  afflict  the  honest  poor  this  season,  than  that  from 


344  THE      RE-ADJUSTMENT    OF    FAITH. 

which  they  suffered  during  the  last.  The  admirable  As 
sociation  for  Improving  the  condition  of  the  Poor  never 
had  greater  evidences  of  threatened  want,  nor  greater 
proofs  of  its  own  usefulness.  I  earnestly  commend  it, 
to-day,  to  your  careful  consideration,  and  beg  you  not  to 
abridge  your  ordinary  contributions  to  its  resources. 

But  now,  leaving  all  merely  social  and  public  inter 
ests,  let  us  give  our  thoughts  to  the  supreme  concern, 
and  ask  ourselves,  not  how  the  New  Year  finds  our  busi 
ness,  or  our  health,  or  our  domestic  state,  or  our  recol 
lections  or  our  prospects  as  citizens  and  merchants, 
but  how  it  finds  our  souls.  "  Create  in  me  a  clean 
heart,  0  God,  and  renew  a  right  spirit  within  me,"  is  a 
much  more  appropriate  petition  for  the  New  Year  than 
any  other  sort  of  renewing  we  can  ask  for.  An  unclean 
heart  and  a  wrong  spirit  are  the  worst  burdens,  the 
most  serious  evils,  we  can  desire  to  have  pass  away  with 
the  old  year. 

What  matters  it  how  clean  our  streets,  how  free 
our  air,  if  our  hearts  are  unclean,  and  bound  in  sin  ? 
What  matters  it  that  business  is  renewed,  if  a  right 
spirit  within  us  is  not  renewed  ?  What  congratulation 
belongs  to  that  New  Year  that  does  not  bring  the  new 
man  of  the  heart  with  it  ?  And  how  can  we  triumph 
in  any  changes  for  the  better,  which  the  fresh  date  may 
promise,  if  it  does  not  promise  or  record  the  inaugura 
tion  of  a  right  spirit  within  us  ?  I  believe  that  this 
opening  year  is  attended  with  more  of  the  joy  which 
belongs  to  the  consciousness  of  hearts  that  have  been 
newly  cleansed,  and  spirits  recently  made  right,  than 
any  previous  one  within  my  own  recollection.  There 
can  be  no  dispute  that  the  great  event  in  the  old  year 


RENEWAL.  345 

was  the  very  general  revival  of  religious  life  in  the 
churches  and  the  world  at  large.  In  the  midst  of  com 
mercial  disaster,  and  perhaps  through  the  way  which 
calamity  and  the  sense  of  the  uncertainty  of  all  earthly 
possessions  opened  for  it,  the  spirit  of  truth  entered  into 
the  souls  of  men  !  God  became  a  solemn  and  tender 
reality  to  thousands  who  had  been  living  without  him 
in  the  world.  Christ  found  entrance  to  hearts  that  for 
long  years  had  kept  him  knocking  in  vain  at  their  doors. 
Religion,  from  a  dull  formality,  confined  to  the  Sim- 
day,  became  a  lively  concern,  pressing  into  the  week, 
and  imperatively  demanding  somo  portion  of  every  day 
for  its  social  cultivation.  Many  whose  anxieties  till 
this  time  had  been  about  their  threatened  fortunes, 
found  themselves  a  hundred  times  more  anxious  for 
their  threatened  souls,  and  for  the  first  time  realized 
the  whole  import  of  our  Lord's  great  question  :  "  What 
shall  it  profit  a  man  to  gain  the  whole  world  and  lose 
his  own  soul  ?  "  Thousands  whose  lives  had  flowed 
along  without  any  marked  change  for  tens  of  years — 
satisfied,  decent,  orderly,  moral — found  themselves  sud 
denly  conscious  of  sins  they  had  not  before  charged  to 
themselves,  occupying  an  attitude  of  indifference  or 
hostility  towards  their  Sovereign  which  they  had  not 
before  suspected,  and  impelled  by  an  inward  awak 
ening  to  seek  a  forgiveness  from  God  and  a  new  relation 
of  friendship  through  his  Son,  which  till  now  they  had 
deemed  fanciful  and  unreal. 

I  envy  not  the   religious  sagacity  nor  the  spiritual 

experience  of  the  man  of  any  creed  who  can  look  with 

suspicion,   ridicule,   or   contempt   upon   the   refreshing 

from  on  high  which  fell  upon  the  Churches  last  spring  ! 

15* 


346  THE    RE-ADJUSTMENT    OF    FAITH. 

Doubtless  the  occasion  was  natural,  but  the  cause  was 
supernatural.  The  conditions  were  human,  but  the  in 
fluence  and  effect  were  superhuman.  If  any  causes  are 
to  be  judged  by  their  effects,  then  why  not  superhuman 
causes  by  superhuman  effects  ?  And  if  any  effects  are 
superhuman,  it  is  when  human  obstinacy,  indifference, 
faithlessness — producing  cold,  selfish,  and  worldly  hearts 
and  lives,  and  resisting  for  years  and  lustres  all  that  in 
struction,  entreaty,  warning  can  do  to  arouse  or  to 
change  them,  suddenly,  under  no  special  influence  from 
these  intermediate  instruments — are  made  tender,  filled 
with  self-reproach,  dissolved  in  penitence,  become  ex 
quisitely  sensitive  to  the  divine  presence,  devotedly 
grateful  to  Christ,  and  conscious  of  a  continued  support 
and  renewing  from  the  Holy  Spirit.  That  such  has 
been  the  blessed  experience  of  thousands  during  the 
past  year  is  no  more  doubtful  or  deniable  than  that  the 
year  has  been  a  year  of  commercial  disaster.  If  a  year 
of  changing  fortunes,  it  has  been  as  evidently  a  year  of 
changed  hearts.  The  religious  crisis  was  just  as  obvious 
as  the  business  crisis  ;  and  the  successes  of  the  Church 
and  the  Holy  Spirit  quite  as  plain  as  the  failures  of  the 
banks  and  the  spirit  of  trade.  Nor  were  the  effects  of 
the  revival  of  religion  any  less  marked  than  the  effects 
of  the  decline  of  business.  The  material  harvest  did 
not  fail  more  remarkably  than  the  spiritual  harvest 
flourished  ;  and  the  consequences  of  the  short  crop  in 
one  have  not  more  unmistakably  survived,  than  the 
consequences  of  the  abundant  yield  in  the  other. 

If  our  canal  and  railroad  tolls  have  declined  ;  if  our 
western  trade  has  fallen  off;  if  our  freights  are  low — 
because  of  the  failure  of  the  wheat  and  corn  in  the 


347 


great  valley  of  the  West — so  our  churches  have  been 
thronged,  our  ministry  quickened,  our  communion  ta 
bles  enlarged,  our  youug  men  brought  into  religious 
activity,  our  friends,  in  not  a  few  cases,  made  over 
again  into  the  likeness  of  the  master,  and  thousands 
of  reliable,  conscientious,  and  devout  persons,  contrib 
uted  to  the  ranks  of  business,  of  good  citizenship,  and 
family  life,  because  of  the  heavenly  rain  in  the  great 
valley  of  God's  kingdom.  If  the  great  river  of  the 
West  swelled  disastrously  and  swept  the  seed  away  at 
the  sowing,  and  ruined  in  advance  an  enormous  breadth 
of  the  harvest — the  river  of  God  swelled  beneficently, 
and  swept  away  the  seeds  of  death,  and  left  in  their 
stead  the  fertility  of  the  blessed  spirit  of  grace  and 
truth.  I  deny  that  the  effects  of  one  freshet  are  more 
obvious  than  those  of  the  other.  And  I  cannot  under 
stand  why  liberal  and  rational  minds  and  hearts  should 
feel  themselves  pledged  or  interested  to  deny  that  God 
has  visited  his  people.  It  is  little  better  than  Atheism 
to  believe  in  a  God  that  cannot  touch  his  creatures  ex 
cept  in  accordance  with  some  law  of  nature,  laid  down 
by  our  imperfect  science.  If  we  are  to  believe  only  in 
ourselves,  and  in  the  God  which  is  in  us  ;  in  the  Holy 
Spirit  only  which  we  carry  in  our  consciences  ;  in  the 
answers  to  our  prayers  involved  in  the  mere  benefit  of 
repeating  holy  words  ;  in  the  conversion  which  comes 
from  a  mere  change  of  purpose,  and  the  regeneration 
of  a  self-evolution  of  the  heart,  then  we  may  consist 
ently  deride  and  discredit  the  existence  of  peculiar 
seasons  of  visitation  from  on  high  ;  scoff  at  years  of 
special  religious  revival,  and  turn  our  backs  upon  any 
pretences  to  fresh  spiritual  experiences.  But  I  confess 


348  THE    RE-ADJUSTMENT    OF    FAITH. 

that  a  God  in  us,  who  is  not  the  shadow  and  echo  of  a 
God  out  of  us  ;  a  Holy.  Spirit  in  our*hearts,  which  has 
not  an  existence  independent  of  our  hearts  ;  a  God  so 
subordinate  to  nature  and  laws  that  he  can  do  nothing 
except  science  and  order  give  him  leave,  is  not  my  God 
and  Father,  nor  the  God  and  Father  of  Jesus  Christ, 
nor  a  God  whom  you  can  safely  lean  upon,  trust,  love, 
and  look  to,  to  help  and  save  you. 

If  it  be  superstition  to  believe  in  a  living  God,  a 
personal  God,  a  prayer-hearing  and  prayer-answering 
God,  let  us  be  superstitious  !  If  it  be  liberal  to  doubt 
or  deny,  or  reason  away,  or  keep  out  of  sight,  or  in  any 
way  resist  the  influence  of  a  living  God,  a  personal 
God,  who  rewardeth  them  that  diligently  seek  him, 
who  answers  prayers,  who  gives  deliverance  to  the  cap 
tives  of  sin,  and  lends  strength  to  the  morally  weak, 
and.  breaks  the  chains  of  habit  for  those  who,  discover 
ing  their  own  inability,  ask  sincerely  his  aid  in  achiev 
ing  their  liberty,  then  let  us  have  done  with  so  liberal, 
or  rather  so  illiberal,  a  faith.  For  liberal  Christianity  it 
is  not,  which  binds  God  to  loose  man,  and  imprisons  the 
Creator  in  his  own  works  for  the  sake  of  emancipating 
science  from  any  thing  above  itself.  Long  enough  has 
such  a  spurious  imitation  of  religion  been  permitted  to 
pass  for  the  reality.  A  child's  watch — all  face,  with  no 
spring  of  motion  from  behind — is  not  a  more  foolish 
substitute  for  a  time-keeper,  than  is  a  self-inspired, 
self-evolved,  self-moved  religion  a  substitute  for  a  God- 
giveo,  God-maintained,  God-filled  religion.  The  bow 
man  might  as  well  say  the  arrow  he  shoots  into  the  air 
came  from  another  archer  in  the  sky,  when  it  falls  to  his 
feet,  as  the  offerer  of  prayers  think  himself  answered 


THE    SOUL'S    RENEWAL.  349 

from  above  by  the  pleasant  frame  of  mind  his  devout- 
ness  of  words  produces,  when  he  does  not  really  believe 
any  God  listens  to  his  cry  !  My  brethren,  we  may 
better  doubt  our  own  freedom  than  God's  !  If  we 
think  our  own  minds  superior  to  the  brute  matter 
about  us  ;  if  we  find  our  wills  capable  of  an  indepen 
dence,  even  in  the  presence  of  the  most  determining 
motives  ;  if  we  sometimes  triumph  over  bodily  decay, 
resist  and  conquer  enormous  obstacles,  and  prove  our 
selves  freemen  of  the  soul,  shall  we  for  an  instant  be 
lieve  that  our  minds  and  wills  are  the  products  of  a 
spiritual  force,  that  is  itself  not  as  free  as  ourselves, 
that  is  not  as  victorious  over  nature  as  we  often  are, 
not  as  independent  of  brute  laws  and  material  condi 
tions,  as  the  creatures  it  has  formed  ?  It  is  the  great 
est  folly  of  reason,  the  greatest  presumption  of  Self- 
conceit,  to  entertain  such  an  opinion  ! 

My  brethren,  thousands  of  believing  and  devout 
minds  are  to-day  rejoicing  with  joy  unspeakable  that 
this  New-Year  finds  them,  for  the  first  time,  conscious 
children  of  God,  heirs  of  a  divine  grace,  subjects  of  a 
heavenly  kingdom — in  new  and  peaceful,  in  sustaining 
and  blessed  relations,  with  God — in  tender,  genuine, 
and  comforting  communion  with  Christ — forgiven,  ac 
cepted,  adopted,  beloved,  sanctified,  saved  !  I  rejoice 
to  believe  that  not  a  few_of  you  have  this  year  tasted 
the  grace  of  God,  which  has  made  you  wise  unto  salva 
tion.  Without  participating  directly  in  the  special  ex 
citement  which  has  spread  through  the  country,  we 
have  lived  under  the  same  heaven  from  which  the 
grateful  showers  were  falling,  and  have  felt  at  least  the 
fringes  of  the  clouds  dropping  their  fatness  upon  us.  I 


350  THE    RE-ADJUSTMENT    OF    FAITH. 

think  I  have  never  known,  among  ourselves,  so  much 
apparent  seriousness  of  inquiry,  eagerness  for  guidance, 
and  willingness  to  be  moved  in  a  right  way,  as  during 
the  last  few  months  ;  and  it  ought  to  be  a  source  of 
common  congratulation  with  us  that  God  has  not  left 
us  out  of  his  kingdom,  when  so  visibly  enlarging  its 
boundaries. 

But,  brethren,  a  general  participation  in  a  mild 
awakening  of  spiritual  life  is  not  enough.  The  prayer 
of  our  text,  the  prayer  of  the  sinful  and  conscience- 
stricken  David,  is,  "  Create  in  me  a  clean  heart,  and 
renew  a  right  spirit  within  me !  "  He  does  not  say, 
Help  the  community  to  which  I  belong  to  improve  it 
self,  and  let  me  share  a  general  interest  in  our  mutual 
advances  in  truth  and  goodness.  Religion,  though  a 
domestic,  a  social,  and  a  public  interest,  is,  primarily, 
a  personal  interest.  All  sin  is  individual.  There  is 
no  abstract,  no  public,  no  common  sin.  All  virtue  is 
individual.  There  is  no  abstract,  public,  common  vir 
tue,  except  the  aggregate  of  individual  virtue.  All 
sense  of  sin — penitence,  confession,  regeneration,  sanc- 
tification,  salvation — is  personal.  Sympathy,  commu 
nity  of  effort,  fellowship,  help  and  perfect  individual 
struggles.  It  is  far  easier,  in  the  midst  of  striving  con 
sciences,  aspiring  hearts,  prayerful  souls,  to  maintain 
our  private  struggle  for  the  spiritual  crown.  But, 
after  all,  every  man,  every  woman,  every  soul,  must 
seek  unto  God  for  itself — must  have  its  own  direct, 
personal  experience,  its  own  act  of  submission,  its  own 
welcome  to  the  spirit  of  truth,  its  own  adoption  as  a 
child  of  God.  Every  one  must  say,  "  Create  in  me  a 
clean  heart,  and  renew  a  right  spirit  within  me."  And 


THE    SOUL'S    RENEWAL.  351 

blessed  are  those  among  you  who  have  made  that 
prayer  from  the  depths  of  troubled  and  sin-torn  hearts, 
and  have  prevailed  with  God  to  answer  it  !  I  need 
not  tell  you  that  I  have  no  foolish  disparagements  to 
offer  to  the  great  principles  of  morality  ;  no  unworthy 
slights  to  cast  on  common  honesty,  social  amenity,  rec 
titude  in  business,  neighborly  kindness,  regular  habits, 
freedom  from  vices.  As  well  might  one  disparage 
ploughing  and  sowing  and  cultivating,  because  they 
are  not  sun  and  rain,  and  nature's  great  chemistry  ;  or 
neglect  barns  and  fences  and  tools  and  methods,  be 
cause  they  are  not  the  great  gifts  of  the  soil.  But 
certainly  all  the  good  habits,  and  all  the  good  princi 
ples  in  the  world,  do  not  by  themselves  succeed  in 
sweetening  the  temper,  subduing  the  will,  elevating 
the  soul,  and  making  men  and  women  conquerors  of 
their  selfishness,  their  tempers,  their  self-dissatisfac 
tions.  I  know  nothing,  alas,  more  discouraging  than 
the  dead  stop  in  the  growth  of  character,  the  unchange 
able  fixity  at  a  certain  point,  in  the  souls  of  the  self- 
culturing  class  so-called,  the  people  who  are  trying 
to  find  their  way  to  heaven  on  a  road  they  make  as 
they  go  along.  Instead  of  taking  the  wings  of  a  dove, 
and  mounting  on  the  breath  of  God's  Spirit,  ever  buoy 
ing  them  up,  and  supplying  them  with  incitement  and 
support,  they  creep  on  their  hands  and  feet  along  the 
dusty,  road  ;  instead  of  opening  their  sails  to  the  wind 
of  heaven,  they  feel  their  way  along  the  shore,  safe  and 
sound,  in  their  own  estimation,  only  when  they  can 
touch  bottom  and  push  themselves  with  their  own 
oar  ! 


352  THE    RE-ADJUSTMENT    OF   FAITH. 

"  But  oars  alone  can  ne'er  prevail 
To  reach  the  heavenly  coast; 
The  breath  of  heaven  must  fill  the  sail, 
Or  all  the  toil  is  lost." 

There  is  nothing  unnatural  in  this  fact,  much  less 
any  thing  incredible.  How  should  men  hope  to  rise 
above  themselves,  except  by  the  aid  of  a  power  exter 
nal  to,  and  above,  themselves  ?  Can  we  save  ourselves, 
pray  to  ourselves,  conquer  ourselves,  free  ourselves  ? 
We  might  just  as  well  attempt  to  jump  off  our  own 
shadow  !  And  this  is  the  fatal  mistake  of  all  attempts 
to  substitute  a  system  of  social  ethics  for  a  system  of 
true  religion.  Religion  represents  a  bond,  a  partner 
ship,  between  man  and  God.  It  contains  offers  and 
promises  of  aid  and  deliverance.  It  gives  assurances 
of  the  existence  and  presence  of  infinite  powers,  willing 
and  anxious  to  do  for  man  what  he  cannot  do  for  him 
self.  Can  he  be  said  to  be  a  religious  man,  in  any 
proper  sense,  who  does  not  believe  that  God  has  any 
access  to  his  soul,  or  care  that  he  has  any  access  to  it, 
or  who  makes  no  dependence  on  God's  help  in  his 
struggles  with  sin  and  his  aspirations  towards  excel 
lence  ?  Yet  men  and  women  with  excellent  inten 
tions,  who  want  to  do  their  duty,  and  to  have  right  af 
fections  and  clean  hearts,  go  on  for  years,  discouraged 
at  finding  themselves  still  the  slaves  of  their  own  faults 
and  weaknesses,  and  all  because  they  have  never  spught 
with  any  sufficient  faith  and  earnestness  God's  aid  and 
Christ's  spirit,  to  support  and  make  adequate  their 
own  efforts.  They  are  children  of  the  law,  trying  to 
fulfil  in  their  own  moral  strength  what  it  requires  the 
grace  of  God,  his  free  spirit  flowing  into  the  soul,  to 


THE    SOUL'S    RENEWAL.  353 

accomplish.  Why,  even  a  dog  can,  in  the  inspiration 
of  his  master's  presence,  do  what  he  is  utterly  unable 
to  do  alone.  A  child,  supported  by  the  voice  and  eye 
of  his  mother,  is  another  being.  And  is  a  man,  uncon 
scious  of  God's  eye  and  God's  Spirit,  truly  himself,  or 
to  be  expected  to  be  able  to  accomplish  those  moral 
and  spiritual  transformations,  which  convert  the  selfish 
into  the  disinterested,  the  passionate  into  the  pelf- 
restrained,  the  vicious  into  the  virtuous,  the  careless 
into  the  believing  ? 

If,  my  brethren,  there  be  any  good  news  in  the 
Gospel,  it  is  this,  that  God  is  willing  and  able  to  save 
to  the  uttermost  ;  willing  and  able  !  All  that  is  ne 
cessary  on  our  part  is  to  be  willing  to  let  him  do  it, 
and  believing  that  he  can  and  will  do  it.  Discard,  I 
beseech  you,  from  your  thoughts,  all  those  caricatures 
of  this  radical  truth  of  the  soul's  dependence  on  God 
for  its  moral  and  spiritual  life  and  ability,  which  preju 
dice  the  rational  mind  against  the  doctrine  of  divine 
grace.  I  do  not  ask  you  to  believe  that  it  is  the  native 
or  total  depravity  of  your  hearts  that  makes  this  help 
of  God  necessary,  or  that  it  is  to  escape  the  fires  of 
eternal  punishment  that  you  need  God's  deliverance  ! 
I  ask  you  only  to  see  and  acknowledge  this,  that  man 
is,  by  his  original  constitution,  a  child  of  God,  depend 
ent  for  his  support  on  his  Father  ;  dependent  on  him 
for  his  education  and  his  setting  up  in  the  true  life  of 
the  soul ;  and  that,  forgetting  or  denying  this,  he  loses 
his  courage,  his  confidence,  his  ability  to  make  a  true 
man  of  himself,  and  goes  about  like  the  prodigal, 
feeding  with  swine,  an  outcast  and  an  alien.  Away 
from  God,  he  is  in  a  most  unnatural  state — shorn  of 


354  THE    RE-ADJUSTMENT    OF    FAITH. 

his  strength,  his  wisdom,  his  only  adequate  guidance. 
And  yet,  every  now  and  then,  whole  generations  swing 
away  from  their  faith  in  God,  either  in  some  tremen 
dous  reaction  upon  superstition,  or  through  the  attrac 
tions  of  science  and  art,  and  the  allurements  of  self- 
worship.  We  are,  I  hope,  near  the  close  of  a  violent 
recoil  upon  Puritanism,  aided  hy  a  powerful  spirit  of 
self-assertion,  which  a  new  world,  and  the  victories  of 
our  enterprise  and  knowledge,  and  our  democratic  in 
stitutions,  have  produced.  Our  present  alienation  from 
God — the  practical  distance  at  which  we  keep  him — 
our  little  genuine  dependence  on  his  inspiration  and 
support,  are  not  natural  ;  they  are  most  unnatural. 
They  occasion  a  world  of  wretchedness,  weariness  of  life, 
inward  unrest,  secret  infidelity,  and  suicide.  They  al 
low  the  soul  to  be  crushed  with  self-imposed  burdens  ; 
they  make  our  temptations  irresistible,  our  sins  uncon 
querable  ;  they  leave  us  without  refuge  or  repose  ! 
We  are  the  victims  of  our  constitutions,  our  tempera 
ments,  our  circumstances  !  They  drive  us  to  think 
and  to  say,  "  I  can't  help  being  what  I  am  !  I  can't 
get  into  a  right  frame.  I  can't  be  what  I  approve,  or 
what  I  desire.  It  is  a  matter  of  constitution."  And 
so  we  give  up  the  controversy.  Very  well.  It  is  true. 
We  can't  do  any  of  these  things.  If  we  could,  we 
should  not  need  any  God,  nor  any  Saviour,  nor  any  re 
ligion.  The  whole  theory  of  Christianity  is  that  we 
can't  do  any  of  these  things  in,  and  of,  ourselves.  But 
God  and  Christ  can  do  them  all,  and  we  can  do  any 
and  all  of  them,  God  helping.  I  can  do  all  things, 
Christ  strengthening  me  !  Our  great  wisdom  lies  in 


THE    SOUI/S    RENEWAL.  355 

knowing  where  to  turn  ;  what  to  look  to  ;  how  to  get 
the  moral  and  spiritual  help  we  need.  Suppose  the 
miller,  instead  of  opening  the  gate  and  letting  in  the 
stream,  should  attempt  to  turn  his  wheel  by  main 
strength  !  This  is  what  we  do  when  we  cease  from 
prayer,  fail  to  put  our  souls  in  communication  with 
God,  and  to  open  our  hearts  to  the  glorious  visitations 
of  his  power  !  And  this  is  what  is  wearing  us  out  in 
so  many  ineffectual  efforts  at  self-conversion.  This  is 
what  is  taking  away  our  joy  in  our  faith  ;  that  blessed 
religious  enthusiasm  which  is,  as  the  eagle's  wings, 
renewing  its  strength  clay  by  day,  and  enabling  the 
soul,  in  place  of  delving  and  digging  its  way,  to  mount 
and  fly  to  heaven. 

Do  you  ask  how  you  shall  find  God  in  your  long 
alienation  from  him  ;  how  you  shall  close  up  your 
broken  relations,  and  renew  your  filial  communion  ? 
Has  he  not  sent  his  Son  for  the  very  purpose  of  an 
swering  these  questions  ?  Is  He  not  set  forth,  to  be 
the  way,  the  truth,  and  the  life  ?  Because  God  is  an 
unseen  spirit,  he  has  chosen  to  make  himself  visible  in 
his  Son  !  Because  we  cannot  visit  the  distant  foun 
tain  of  all  our  strength,  hid  in  the  everlasting  hills,  he 
has  established  a  well  of  living  water  in  Christ,  kept 
ever  full  from  the  eternal  head,  and  made  accessible  in 
his  church,  a  truly  supernatural  institution,  a  city  of 
God  dropped  upon  the  earth  !  Practically  we  lean  on 
God,  when  "we  lean  on  Christ ;  practically  we  have 
God's  help,  when  we  have  his  Son's  help.  "  He  that 
hath  the  Son,  hath  the  Father  also."  And,  practically, 
we  cannot  hope  to  get  the  Spirit  of  God  into  our  hearts, 


356  THE    RE-ADJUSTMENT    OF    FAITH. 

except  through  the  mediation  of  our  Lord  and  Saviour. 
The  man  that  really  knows  and  feels  the  meaning  of 
that  word  Saviour,  that  accepts  Jesus  as  his  Saviour, 
that  clings  to  him,  and  loves  him  and  trusts  in  him, 
has  found  God's  salvation  ;  for  Christ  is  the  mediator 
between  God  and  man.  Not  that  direct  communication 
is  intercepted  or  impossible,  but,  practically,  indirect 
communication  is  often  easier,  even  when  direct  is  possi 
ble.  And,  as  a  mere  fact,  the  experience  of  the  world 
has  taught  it  that  no  Saviour  is  equivalent  to  no  God. 
My  brethren,  ought  you  not  to  joy  in  God  through 
Christ  ?  And  instead  of  feeling  reluctant  and  indiffer 
ent  and  suspicious — as  if  you  were  going  to  compromise 
your  moral  and  intellectual  dignity  in  the  act — ought 
you  not,  with  your  actual  knowledge  of  yourselves,  to 
feel  the  glorious  privilege,  the  vast  relief,  the  unspeak 
able  consolation,  contained  in  the  faith  that  you  have  a 
Saviour  able  to  save  to  the  uttermost  ;  a  God  and 
Father,  willing  always  to  do  exceeding  abundantly 
above  what  you  are  able  to  ask  and  even  to  think,  if 
you  will  only  abandon  vain  self-reliances,  and  "cast 
yourselves  on  him  that  careth  for  you  ?  " 

Would  to  God  this  New- Year's  Sabbath  might  date 
the  return  of  some  wanderers  to  the  Father's  house  ; 
that  on  the  threshold  of  the  New- Year,  some  heavy-laden 
hearts  might  cast  their  burdens  on  the  Lord,  exchange 
their  galling  chains  for  his  light  and  easy  yoke,  and  go 
"on  their  way  rejoicing  in  a  heavenly  deliverance. 
Then,  indeed,  would  we  together  set  up  a  new  stone 
at  this  stage  of  our  pilgrimage  !  and  celebrate  with 
joy  the  triumphs  of  our  faith  over  our  sins  and  our  sor- 


THE    SOUL'S    RENEWAL. 


357 


rows.  Then  might  I  have  less  reason  for  self-reproach 
and  sadness  on  this  day,  which  precisely  marks  the 
twentieth  anniversary  of  my  ordination  and  ministry, 
for  you  would  be  my  hope  and  joy  and  crown  of  re 
joicing  ! 


JAN.  2,  1859. 


0"  THK 


^ 

'UNIVERSITY; 


SERMON  XXII. 

NATURE,  ORIGIN  AND   WORTH,  OF   RELIGIOUS  EXCITEMENT. 

"  Father,  glorify  thy  name.     Then  came  there  a  voice  from  heaven,  paying, 

I  have  both  glorified  it  and  will  glorify  it  again. 
"  The  people  therefore  that  stood  by  and  heard  it,  said  that  it  thundered. 

Others  said,  An  angel  spake  to  him." — JOHN  xii.  28,  29. 

IT  is  more  probable  that  the  thunder  was  mistaken 
for  a  voice,  than  that  an  articulate  voice  was  mistaken 
for  thunder,  in  this  case  ;  for  thunder  is  a  voice  from 
heaven.  The  deeply  religious  and  exalted  mind  of 
Christ  turned  all  striking  natural  phenomena  into  di 
vine  language,  and  the  devouter  portion  of  his  follow 
ers,  lifted  into  a  sense  of  God's  presence  by  his  society, 
no  doubt  often  supposed  the  natural  events  connected 
with  his  career  to  be  supernatural,  and  this  was  the 
more  likely,  because  of  the  actual  miracles  which  he 
did. 

I  wish,  at  this  time,  to  examine,  with  reference  to 
the  prevailing  state  of  religious  excitement,  first,  the 
relation  of  the  miraculous  to  the  natural  in  Christian 
ity  ;  then,  of  the  extraordinary  to  the  ordinary,  in  relig 
ious  moods  and  methods,  that  we  may  understand  how 
much  and  how  little  importance  to  attach  to  the  alleged 


RELIGIOUS    EXCITEMENT.  359 

supernaturalism  in  the  movement  of  the  popular  relig 
ious  mind  at  this  time.  I  begin  with  the  relation  of 
the  miraculous  to  the  natural.  Our  text  is  an  illustra 
tion  of  the  difficulty  which  exists  in  times  of  religious 
excitement  in  distinguishing  between  natural  and  su 
pernatural  appearances.  And  this  is  a  universal  diffi 
culty.  It  is  not  easy  to  define  natural  laws  and  mirac 
ulous  exceptions  satisfactorily,  even  in  the  abstract ; 
but  vastly  easier  than  to  distinguish  them  positively  as 
actual  occurrences.  Not  being  thoroughly  acquainted 
with  nature,  we  are  prone  to  attribute  new,  or  hitherto 
unobserved  phenomena,  to  exceptional  causes.  Thus, 
until  the  theory  of  comets  was  understood,  their  ec 
centric  movements  so  entirely  refused  to  come  under 
any  law  common  to  the  other  heavenly  bodies,  that  it 
was  almost  unavoidable  to  regard  them  as  portents  of 
coming  disaster,  moving  by  a  miraculous  interposition 
across  the  heavens,  in  defiance  of  gravitation  and  the 
laws  of  nature. 

Again  :  What  less  than  a  miracle  must  a  vessel, 
moving  against  wind  and  tide,  seem  to  a  savage  on  a 
Pacific  island,  as,  for  the  first  time,  he  views  a  steamer 
moving  swiftly  by  his  coast  ?  Again  :  Suppose  one  of 
our  Pilgrim  Fathers,  waked  from  his  sleep  of  two  cen 
turies,  and  placed  in  a  telegraphic  office  in  Wall  street, 
to  converse  with  one  of  his  descendants  at  New  Orleans 
without  having  the  wonderful  process  explained,  but 
only  the  actual  facts  proved  beyond  question,  that  he 
did  communicate  and  receive  intelligence  through  that 
thousand  miles  instantaneously.  Can  we  conceive  an 
actual  miracle  which  could  surprise  or  confound  him 
more  ?  What  distinction  could  he  draw  between  such 


360  THE    RE-ADJUSTMENT    OF    FAITH. 

a  fact  and  the  prophecy  of  future  events — the  raising 
of  the  dead,  the  healing  of  the  sick,  by  a  touch  ? 

And  yet  there  is  a  distinction.  Although  we  are 
ignorant  of  many  things,  we  know  others  well.  There 
are  doubtless  new,  or  rather  undiscovered  laws  of  na 
ture,  and  probably  great  regions  of  natural  law,  with 
which  we  are  as  yet  unacquainted.  Discoveries  as 
wonderful  as  steam,  electric  language,  photography, 
are  probably  in  store  for  new  generations  of  inquirers 
and  humble  questioners  of  nature's  secrets.  Still,  there 
is  a  realm  of  positive  knowledge.  We  know  that  heavy 
bodies  gravitate  to  the  ground.  We  know  that  blind 
ness  cannot  be  cured  by  a  touch  ;  that  withered  limbs 
do  not  recover  at  a  word  ;  nay,  in  spite  of  the  phenom 
ena  of  trance,  and  sleep,  and  catalepsy,  we  know,  with 
sufficient  care,  how  to  distinguish  death  from  all  its 
mockeries.  It  is  possible,  therefore,  to  conceive  of  a 
genuine  miracle  that  is  a  positive,  unmistakable  repeal 
and  contravention  of  a  well-known  law  of  nature.  A 
man  actually  dead  restored  to  life  ;  a  man  actually 
blind  restored  to  sight  by  a  word ;  water  actually 
changed  to  wine  ;  bread  actually  multiplied  at  the 
word  of  command — these  are  miracles,  and  it  is  idle  to 
say  that  these  events  could  not  occur  under  circum 
stances  in  which  the  suspicion  of  fraud  would  be  un 
reasonable;  foolish  to  affirm,  that  no  amount  of  evidence 
could  render  them  credible.  What  a  rational  faith  in 
them  properly  demands  is,  a  sufficient  object  to  make 
such  an  interruption  of  natural  laws  reasonable  ;  their 
connection  with  such  persons  and  purposes  as  to  furnish 
us  with  supporting  grounds  of  faith  in  them,  and  then 
such  careful,  copious,  and  exact  evidence  of  the  fact,  as 


RELIGIOUS    EXCITEMENT.  361 

events  of  so  improbable  a  character  require.  Christian 
believers  maintain  that  all  these  circumstances  con 
spired  in  the  planting  of  our  religion  ;  that  the  object 
was  worthy  a  direct  interposition  •  that  the  character 
and  conduct  of  Jesus  Christ  make  his  possession  of  mi 
raculous  powers  not  unreasonable,  and  that  the  positive 
evidence  that  he  had  and  used  such  power,  is  precise, 
copious,  and  overwhelming. 

Miracles  being  thus  possible  and  actual,  though 
most  rare,  and  receivable  only  under  stringent  criticism, 
we  can  see  how  equally  possible,  nay,  how  unavoidable, 
imitations,  and  echoes,  and  pretensions  of  miracles  must 
be.  I  have  no  doubt  of  the  genuineness  of  the  positive 
miracles  ascribed  in  the  New  Testament  to  Christ  and 
his  apostles,  but  I  find  in  the  record  evidences  of  a  dis 
position — an  honest  and  natural  disposition — to  exag 
gerate  the  miraculous  element ;  to  attribute  to  miracle 
what  fell  out  in  the  way  of  nature,  and  to  throw  a  wa 
vering,  supernatural  light,  over  things  ordinary  and 
normal.  It  would  be  very  strange  if  this  were  not  so. 

If  we  go  back  and  place  ourselves  in  the  society  of 
Jesus — a  being  from  time  to  time  working  actual  mira 
cles,  we  can  at  once  see  how  disposed  we  should  have 
been  to  ascribe  all  his  conduct  and  speech  to  miraculous 
influences  ;  how  excited  and  exalted  our  whole  frame 
of  feeling  would  have  been,  and  in  what  honesty  we 
should  have  become  credulous,  and  reported  many 
things  in  a  strained  way.  Nor  must  we  forget  that  the 
natural  powers  which  Christ  had — his  power  of  realizing 
the  divine  presence,  and  seeing  God  in  nature,  in  man, 
and  in  all  the  operations  of  his  own  and  the  human 
spirit — gave  a  preternatural,  or  exalted  tone  and  temper 
16 


362  THE    RE-ADJUSTMENT    OF    FAITH. 

to  his  most  ordinary  moods  ;  fo*  lie  was,  doubtless,  as 
exceptionally  grand  and  gifted  in  his  nature  as  he  was 
peculiarly  and  miraculously  supported  in  his  office. 

And  here  let  us  distinctly  understand  the  real  value 
of  the  miraculous  element  in  our  religion,  judging  it 
from  the  estimate  which  Jesus  put  upon  it  himself 
Our  Lord  did  not  value  his  miraculous  powers  for  them 
selves,  nor  use  them  for  himself.  They  had  no  spiritual 
significance  to  him.  They  were  useful  to  him  in  prov 
ing  his  official  relation  to  God  and  men,  and  nothing 
mora  I  suppose  he  knew  as  little  of  the  way  in  which 
his  own  miracles  were  wrought  as  we  do.  For  God  is 
the  only  worker  of  miracles,  and  those  through  whom 
they  are  wrought  by  him,  merely  derive  thence  a  seal 
of  their  authority  as  messengers.  Then,  again,  although 
there  may  be  miraculously  communicated  knowledge, 
as  well  as  miraculous  power,  yet  the  inspiration  of  the 
intellect  with  the  knowledge  of  facts  or  future  events, 
or  of  the  truth  of  laws  and  precepts  not  otherwise  known 
to  be  binding,  is  not  that  moral  and  spiritual  inspira 
tion  on  which  Christ  really  valued  himself,  though  he 
possessed  it.  His  real  everlasting  superiority  as  a  spir 
itual  head,  lay  in  his  nearness  to  God  as  a  spiritual 
creature — a  nearness  which,  though  extraordinary,  is 
not  miraculous — for  moral  inspiration  or  spiritual  influx 
is  a  question  only  of  more  or  less,  since  it  is  open  to  all 
moral  beings.  Christ's  miraculous  powers,  then,  whether 
wonder-working  or  prophetic,  are  not  the  attributes 
which  make  him  sublime,  holy,  and  saving.  It  is  the  vast 
moral  power,  the  spiritual  insight,  the  divine  disinterest 
edness  in  him,  which  we  venerate  and  love,  and  wonder 
at;  and  this  is  not  miraculous,  but  a  merely  increased 


KELIGIOUS    EXCITEMENT.  363 

measure  of  that  inspiration  which  accompanies  every 
human  soul,  and  grows  with  fidelity  and  obedience  in 
the  heart  of  every  faithful  child  of  God. 

I  press  this  point  for  a  special  reason.  We  must 
not,  with  the  impatient  and  knowing,  deny  miracles  ; 
but  we  must  not,  with  the  credulous  and  marvel-loving, 
exaggerate  them.  We  must  not  deny  Christ  official 
inspiration,  which  is  miraculous,  but  we  must  not  exalt 
official  inspiration,  because  of  its  superior  historic  im 
portance,  above  moral  inspiration,  which  is  not  and  can 
not  be  miraculous. 

The  great  and  ever-glorious  method  by  which  God 
communicates  with  his  children  is  by  natural  and  spir 
itual  laws.  The  ordinary,  regular,  normal  events  and 
operations  of  life,  are  infinitely  more  important  and  in 
structive  than  any  interruption  of  them  can  be.  If 
Niagara  should,  on  a  certain  day,  stop  its  flood  in  full 
tide,  and  hang  suspended  in  mid  air  for  five  minutes,  it 
would  be  a  miracle  ;  and  if  it  did  this  at  the  command 
of  a  wise  and  holy  man,  who  claimed  to  have  a  message 
from  God,  we  should  listen  to  him  with  docile  and  rev 
erent  ears.  But  what  would  the  stoppage  of  Niagara 
for  five  minutes  reveal  of  God,  compared  with  what  its 
flow  for  five,  for  forty  centuries,  has  done,  and  is  daily 
doing,  to  show  forth  his  glory  and  might  ?  The  mul 
tiplication  of  five  loaves  and  two  fishes  into  the  food  of 
five  thousand  men,  is  a  proof  indeed  of  the  official  power 
and  place  of  Christ ;  but  what  is  it,  considered  as  a 
showing  forth  of  God's  power,  when  compared  with  the 
yearly  resurrection  of  nature  in  the  spring — the  growth 
of  the  wheat  over  millions  of  acres,  the  spawning  of  the 
finny  tribe  in  all  waters,  and  the  perpetual  multiplica- 


364  THE    RE-ADJUSTMENT    OF   FAITH 

tion  of  loaves  and  fishes,  by  the  ceaseless  will  and  power 
of  the  God  of  nature  ?  In  like  manner,  the  descent  of 
the  Holy  Ghost,  however  real,  falling  on  the  disciples 
at  Pentecost,  and  enabling  them  to  speak  in  various 
tongues,  is  a  marvellous  thing,  pointing  out  the  apos 
tles  as  authorized  teachers  of  the  new  religion.  But 
what  is  it,  after  all,  to  that  communication  which  God 
has  with  the  human  soul,  when  he  originally  inspires  it 
with  thought,  affection,  conscience,  reason  ;  or  which  he 
continually  has  with  it  in  supporting  and  increasing 
these  powers,  and  revealing  himself,  by  means  of  them, 
to  every  docile  and  patient  child  of  the  Great  Parent  ? 
Kemember  that  Christ,  in  the  chief  relations  he  had 
with  God,  was  upon  the  same  human  footing — of  a 
God-created,  God-inspired  soul,  in  a  God-created,  God- 
supported  world — that  every  other  human  spirit  is  ; 
and  that  all  that  the  supernatural  or  miraculous  can 
add  to  the  natural  and  normal  is,  however  important 
for  official  purposes,  small  indeed,  considered  spirit 
ually  and  absolutely. 

We  shall  never  be  able  to  do  justice  to  the  New 
Testament,  or  to  the  religious  phenomena  either  of 
past  history  or  of  recent  occurrence,  until  we  recognize 
more  distinctly  the  wonderful  spiritual  basis  of  ordinary 
human  life.  The  soul,  by  its  very  constitution,  is  near 
to  God,  and  lives  in  and  from  him.  God  is  not  afar 
off,  but  here  with  us — permeating  our  very  being,  and 
communicating  strength,  wisdom,  and  peace,  according 
to  our  willingness  to  receive  him.  Instead,  therefore, 
of  wondering  at  the  communication  of  good  suggestions, 
noble  impulses,  a  strength  not  oar  own,  an  insight  new 
and  piercing,  we  ought  to  know  that  these  are  steadily 


RELIGIOUS    EXCITEMENT.  365 

and  uniformly  waiting  to  enter  our  souls,  as  the  beams 
of  the  sun  are  to  penetrate  the  soil  of  that  earth  which 
turns  away  from  them,  or  sends  up  clouds  and  mists 
from  its  own  surface  to  hide  and  quench  the  solar  ray. 
God  is  always  waiting  to  be  gracious  ;  always  whisper 
ing  truth,  peace,  joy  to  our  hearts.  It  is  not  he  that 
goes  away  from  us,  or  intermits  his  care  and  shuts  off 
his  inspiration,  but  we  that  go  away  from  him,  and  re 
fuse  his  messages,  and  stop  our  ears  to  his  constant 
voice.  He  speaks  to  us  in  a  thousand  ways — some 
times  through  outward  nature,  where  he  stands  clothed 
in  beauty  or  sublimity,  and  uses  the  form  of  mountain 
or  flower,  of  ocean  or  dew-drop,  to  arrest  the  eye  and 
win  the  heart  ;  sometimes  in  the  form  of  humanity,  as 
he  urges  reason,  love,  or  pity,  through  the  lips  of  rever 
ent  age,  or  lovely  innocence,  or  weeping  sorrow  ;  some 
times  by  our  consciences,  in  their  derived  light,  flash 
ing  reproof  and  approval  on  our  pathway  ;  sometimes 
by  mysterious  breathings,  that,  like  zephyrs  from  a 
spiced  shore,  woo  our  souls  with  heavenly  sweetness  to 
some  unexpected  port  of  bliss.  But  in  whatever  form 
it  be,  God  is  near — a  besetting  God,  on  the  right  hand 
and  the  left,  ever  educating,  disciplining,  helping  his 
child,  and  striving  to  save  and  bless  him.  The  world 
is  full  of  God  ;  the  soul  is  full  of  God  ;  for  he  is  the  omni 
present  and  all-pervading  spirit  of  the  universe.  It  is, 
then,  only  a  coarse  and  exclusive,  and  half-religious  notion, 
which  makes  only  the  extraordinary,  the  miraculous,  the 
irregular,  the  inconstant,  the  peculiar — the  presence 
and  influence  of  God — the  cause  of  religious  life  and  the 
means  of  spiritual  growth. 

At  this  moment  a  strongly-marked  religious  interest 


3G6  THE    RE-ADJUSTMENT    OF    FAITH. 

pervades  the  public  mind.  The  extent  of  it  is  indicated 
by  the  fact  that  the  secular  papers  contain  regular  and 
long  accounts  of  revivals  in  the  churches,  and  we  may 
be  sure  that  they  know  too  well  what  is  interesting  to 
their  readers  to  make  the  mistake  of  dwelling  upon 
topics  that  are  not  popular  at  the  moment.  It  is  an 
unquestionable  fact,  then,  that  the  relations  of  men  with 
God  are  more  on  their  hearts  and  minds,  and  their  will 
ingness  to  hear  and  solicitude  to  profit  by  the  Gospel 
of  Christ,  are  much  greater  than  usual,  at  this  time. 
And  doubtless,  instead  of  seeking  to  account  for  this,  or 
to  discuss  the  causes,  whether  natural  or  supernatural, 
the  first  disposition  of  serious  men  should  be,  to  take 
advantage  of  it,  and  improve  the  season  of  moral  sensi 
tiveness  to  the  awakening  of  the  sleepers  and  the  sow 
ing  of  the  harvest.  When,  for  any  reasons,  the  minds 
of  men  are  open  and  their  hearts  soft,  we  should  fling 
in  the  seed  of  truth,  and  endeavor  to  lead  those  who 
for  the  first  time  are  willing,  to  the  source  of  truth  and 
the  feet  of  Christ.  It  should  be,  then,  the  universal 
aim  of  religious  teachers,  at  this  time,  to  bring  the  du 
ties  and  privileges  of  religion  home  with  special  earnest 
ness  and  tenderness  to  the  souls  of  men.  I  cannot  sym 
pathize  with  those  who  think  it  unwise  to  multiply,  to 
some  extent,  occasions  and  means  of  religious  instruc 
tion  and  quickening  at  such  a  time,  or  who  suppose  that 
great  harm  is  likely  to  accrue  in  the  end  from  the  special 
attention  given  to  religion  and  the  special  excitement 
felt  about  it  now.  Reaction  upon  vigorous  action  we 
expect  ;  apathy  will  follow  excitement ;  but  it  is  equally 
true  that  action  ensues  upon  inaction,  and  excitement 
grows  out  of  apathy.  It  will  not  do  to  object  to  relig- 


KELIGIOUS    EXCITEMENT.  367 

ious  excitement,  that  it  is  followed  by  religious  apa 
thy,  unless  we  object  to  religious  apathy,  because  it  is 
followed  by  religious  excitement.  None  can  or  will 
deny,  that  a  state  of  settled  and  healthy  interest  in  re 
ligion  is  the  state  above  all  to  be  desired  ;  that  excite 
ment  and  apathy  are  both  highly  objectionable  ;  but 
certainly,  while  we  have  one  extreme,  we  must  look  for, 
and  even  welcome,  the  other.  And  I  do  not  doubt  that 
the  present  excitement  is  a  wholesome  reaction  upon 
the  general  and  obstinate  religious  indifference  that 
has  for  years  prevailed  in  this  country. 

But  some  doubtless  will  ask,  if  this  present  excite 
ment  is  not  a  mere  nervous  panic  — a  moral  St.  Yitus's 
dance — spreading,  by  pure  physical  sympathy,  through 
the  community,  and  gathering  new  force  with  every 
success.  There  can  be  no  manner  of  doubt  that  the 
nerves  have  their  part  in  the  matter,  and  that  a  conta 
gious  emotional  element,  capable  of  an  evil  and  perilous 
direction,  is  at  work  at  this  time.  But  who  gave  us 
our  nerves,  and  planted  this  sympathetic  power  in  our 
constitution  ?  When  I  see  a  boarding-school  suddenly 
afflicted  with  a  general  agitation  of  the  nervous  system, 
instead  of  saying  only,  with  the  physician,  this  is  a  com 
mon  morbid  symptom,  which  needs  tonics,  and  an  imme 
diate  dispersion  of  the  parties  to  it  beyond  the  reach  of 
mutual  excitement,  I  reflect,  with  the  philosopher,  upon 
the  origin  and  meaning  of  this  wonderful  sympathetic 
organization,  and  am  confident,  that  though  in  this 
case  a  painful  and  diseased  activity,  it  possesses  some 
great  and  benignant  power,  and  has  an  honest  and 
wholesome  place  in  the  human  constitution.  And  so 
with  all  the  enthusiastic  and  emotional  elements  in  our 


368  THE    RE-ADJUSTMENT    OF    FAITH. 

nature — all  intimately  connected  with  the  more,  delicate 
parts  of  our  physical  organization,  they  have  their  proper 
and  necessary  place  in  our  experience,  and  are  not  al 
ways  and  everywhere  to  be  suspected  and  outlawed.  If 
the  nervous  and  sympathetic  thrill  happens  to  be  struck 
in  the  service  of  truth  and  duty  ;  if  the  contagion  of 
feeling  is  of  a  right  feeling  ;  if  the  excitement,  partly 
physical,  partly  moral,  is  an  excitement  in  favor  of  re 
pentance  and  newness  of  life,  I  shall  not,  for  one,  con 
tent  myself  with  exclaiming,  mere  excitement  !  as  if 
that  ended  the  matter.  Nor  can  I  wholly  object  to 
what  is  called  the  machinery  of  the  occasion,  so  long  as 
it  is  not  concealed  and  dishonest,  and  overworked.  I 
take  it  that  it  is  only  a  question  of  more  and  less.  All 
religious  institutions  involve  machinery.  The  ministry, 
the  Sabbath,  the  exercises  of  public  worship,  earnest 
speech  and  exhortation,  are  kinds  of  machinery.  I  can 
see  no  reason  why  this  machinery  may  not  be  properly 
increased  at  special  times.  That  it  may  be,  and  is 
greatly  abused,  admits  of  no  question.  But  a  judicious 
use  of  machinery  in  behalf  of  religious  interest,  is  as  le 
gitimate  and  as  necessary  as  in  behalf  of  political  inter 
est.  We  have  political  revivals  ;  why  not  religious  ? 
political  exhorters  and  successful  orators  ;  why  not  re 
ligious  ?  times  and  seasons  when  excitements  are  dili 
gently  sought  to  deepen  the  popular  interest  in  special 
principles  of  policy  and  patriotism  ;  why  not  of  duty 
and  worship  ?  But  thoughtful  and  instructed  natures 
will  feel  it  and  need  it  very  little,  whether  in  politics 
or  religion. 

But  is  any  or  much  good  to  be  expected  from  the 
sudden  and  temporary  stir  of  religious  feeling  ?      Is 


KELIGIOUS   EXCITEMENT.  369 

there  not  a  great  deal  of  animal  heat  and  false  excite 
ment  in  it  ?  and  must  not  a  work  of  alleged  grace,  done 
in  haste  and  under  the  contagion  of  enthusiastic  feel 
ings,  soon  show  its  emptiness  and  instability  ?  I  have 
already  said  that  physical  excitability  and  nervous  sym 
pathy  have  no  small  part  in  this  matter.  Of  course, 
when  they  subside,  those  who  were  animated  by  nothing 
else,  will  be  seen  to  have  experienced  no  moral  and 
spiritual  change.  But  many  who  feel  the  nervous  ex 
citement  keenly,  feel  a  general  moral  excitement  like 
wise  ;  and  under  the  influence  of  a  sensibility  which 
required  body  and  soul  for  its  creation,  really  awake 
to  convictions  that  shape  and  bless  their  future  lives. 
It  is  probable  that  in  the  conversions  of  camp-meetings, 
not  one  in  ten  effects  any  useful  or  permanent  change 
of  character.  A  Methodist  class-leader  told  a  friend  of 
mine,  that  in  his  village  there  had  been  an  annual  re 
vival  for  eight  years  past,  and  that  of  sixty  or  eighty 
persons  each  year  claiming  conversion,  three-quarters 
had  experienced  the  same  change  every  year,  and  regu 
larly  backslidden.  The  Church,  however,  steadily  gained 
genuine  converts,  and  was  content  to  go  on  upon  this 
system,  which,  considering  the  ignorance  and  stupidity 
of  the  parties,  was,  perhaps,  the  only  system  possible. 
Under  the  moderate  style  of  chastened  excitement 
which  prevails  in  the  churches  of  this  community,  I 
should  expect  the  measure  of  reality  and  worth  in  the 
alleged  conversions  would  be  strictly  proportioned  to 
the  degree  of  cultivation  and  intelligence  marking  the 
subjects  of  it.  If  men  of  sense,  possessing  a  tolerable 
acquaintance  with  their  own  nature,  fall  under  religious 
excitement,  it  is  likely  to  do  a  more  thorough  work ; 


370  THE    RE-ADJUSTMENT    OF    FAITH. 

and  although  a  subsidence  of  excitement  leaves  them 
less  changed  than  they  hoped  or  thought,  it  does  not 
leave  them  without  some  substantial  and  important  ex 
perience  of  spiritual  things  fitted  to  renew,  and  perhaps 
radically  change,  their  lives  and  characters. 

Because  a  great  deal  of  backsliding,  a  great  deal  of 
self-delusion,  of  false  profession  and  mere  superficial 
piety,  is  sure  to  ensue  upon  this  movement,  yet  it  is  not 
hence  to  be  concluded  that  its  general  drift  is  not  wise, 
and  wholesome,  and  genuine.  It  is  with  religious  ex 
citement  as  with  other  social  and  political  movements. 
You  recollect  the  great  Free  Soil  excitement,  and  how 
many  of  its  first  earnest  converts  have  since  eaten  their 
words  of  earnest  profession  of  anti-slavery  faith ;  still, 
that  movement  bore  fruit,  and  will  survive  the  back 
sliding  of  some  of  its  prominent  early  disciples.  When 
an  excitement  is  bcised  upon  the  real  importance  of  the 
subject  of  it — when  the  attention  it  arouses  fastens 
upon  a  truth,  and  not  a  falsehood,  it  does  good  ;  and 
that  was  the  case  with  the  Free  Soil  excitement.  Con 
trast  it  with  the  excitement  of  the  Harrison  campaign, 
when  a  universal  bankrupt  law — wrong  in  principle  and 
accidental  in  policy — was  the  real  cause  of  the  stir — a 
stir  which  left  no  effects  whatever  but  a  dangerous  pre 
cedent  in  legislation — and  you  will  see  the  difference 
between  the  excitement  in  a  good  and  in  a  poor  cause. 
The  present  excitement  is  in  a  good  cause — the  cause 
of  repentance  of  sin,  acceptance  of  God's  offers  of  mercy 
to  penitents,  newness  of  life,  and  pureness  of  heart — 
and  I  can  see  no  reason  why,  if  a  large  proportion  of 
the  converts  are  spurious,  the  small  proportion  of  the 
genuine  should  not  repay  the  labor.  For  it  is  not  only 


RELIGIOUS    EXCITEMENT.  371 

spurious  converts  that  religion  has  to  contend  with,  but 
spurious  pupils,  spurious  hearers  of  the  Word,  a  spuri 
ous  attention,  a  spurious  interest,  spurious  good  resolu 
tions,  spurious  decorum,  and  all  sorts  of  spuriousness. 
Because  not  one  in  ten  of  the  hearers  of  a  rational 
preaching  show  any  decided  fruits  of  the  teaching  they 
profess  to  receive,  approve,  and  enjoy,  are  we  to  abandon 
it  ?  Why  then  make  spurious  converts  the  exclusive 
objects  of  our  suspicion  ?  Moderation  and  calmness, 
reason  and  good  sense,  have  their  failures  and  fruitless- 
ness  as  well  as  emotion  and  excitement. 

It  is  interesting,  my  brethren,  to  observe  that  this 
revival,  like  all  others  of  a  general  sort,  has  come  quite 
gradually  upon  the  community,  and  with  less  external 
preparation  and  expectation  than  usual.  No  doubt  the 
general  commercial  distress,  the  social  trouble,  mortifi 
cation  and  sorrow  which  the  previous  six  months  had 
brought  with  it,  had  produced  a  very  wide-spread  sense 
of  the  importance  of  a  more  substantial  dependence 
than  fortune  and  external  success  can  offer.  It  is  com 
mon  to  say,  that  when  men  can  get  nothing  better,  they 
turn  to  religion.  It  is  true  ;  and  God,  I  question  not,  is 
glad  to  win  their  hearts  on  any  terms.  No  doubt,  too, 
that  lack  of  other  engrossing  occupations  leaves  the 
mind  more  open  to  moral  influences.  All  the  second 
ary,  external  causes  of  this  interest,  ought  to  be  freely 
and  honestly  acknowledged.  There  is  nothing  to  be 
ashamed  of  in  them.  They  act  in  accordance  with  the 
recognized  and  established  laws  of  'human  nature.  I 
can  believe,  too,  that  the  disused  and  almost-forgotten 
emotionality  which  a  long  suspension  of  religious  ex 
citement  in  this  community  had  produced,  adds  to  the 


372  THE    RE-ADJUSTMENT    OF    FAITH. 

attractiveness  and  force  of  this  passionate  sensibility, 
now  that  it  is  once  in  motion.  But  this  revival  is,  mainly, 
the  honest  reassertion  of  the  place  which  piety  and  faith 
ought  to  have  in  the  souls  of  men  ;  and  from  all  I  can 
learn,  it  is  marked  with  unusual  freedom  from  excesses, 
fanaticism,  and  the  extravagances  of  speech  and  behav 
iour,  not  uncommonly  connected  with  such  movements. 
It  is  particularly  interesting  to  notice,  what  is  not 
strictly  peculiar  to  this  occasion,  but  is  more  than 
usually  marked  in  it — how  universal,  unsectarian  and 
simple  are  the  doctrines  upon  which  the  revival  pro 
ceeds.  The  Trinity,  the  vicarious  atonement,  everlast 
ing  damnation,  election — with  the  spirit  of  denuncia 
tion,  and  fear — are  for  the  time  put  utterly  aside.  Men 
are  urged  to  repent  of  their  sins  ;  to  accept  Christ  as  a 
sufficient  Saviour,  to  give  God  their  hearts — and  thus 
the  ordinary  truths  of  religion,  in  which  Unitarians  and 
Trinitarians,  Univers^lists  and  close-communion  Bap 
tists  might  unite,  are  the  powers  alone  depended  on  to 
accomplish  the  conversion  of  souls.  In  proof  of  this 
fact,  it  is  a  truth,  that  the  C/irist-iaus, — an  anti-Trini 
tarian  body,  but  with  Methodist  habits  of  preaching 
and  discipline — are  largely  and  constantly  engaged  in 
this  work,  and  are  as  successful  in  raising  the  intensest 
religious  enthusiasm  as  though  they  believed  and  urged 
the  whole  Westminster  Catechism.  It  ought  to  teach 
Christendom  that  if  Unitarianism  seeks,  cultivates  and 
enjoys  a  soberer  and  more  regular  religious  life  and 
habits  than  the  prevailing  bodies  of  modern  Christians, 
it  is  not  because  of  any  lack  of  power  in  its  doctrines 
to  move  the  emotional  nature,  but  because  of  the  gen 
eral  culture  of  the  whole  man  which  it  promotes,  the 


RELIGIOUS   EXCITEMENT.  373 

balanced  and  complete  development  it  seeks,  and  the 
class  of  discreet  and  cultivated  persons  who  compose  its 
sect. 

But  now,  having  done  ample  justice  to  the  reality 
and  the  importance  of  the  present  popular  religious  ex 
citement,  I  return  to  the  general  principle  from  which  we 
started.  It  is  this  :  what  is  exceptional,  occasional  and 
extraordinary  in  religious  exercises  and  experiences,  or  in 
the  means  of  knowing  and  serving  God,  or  of  receiving 
and  living  the  Gospel  of  Christ,  is  always  of  little  depend 
ence,  little  importance  and  little  claim,  compared  with 
the  regular,  usual  and  permanent  institutions,  habits 
and  sentiments  of  Christendom  and  Christians.  Ke- 
ligious  instruction,  good,  regular  and  steady,  is  more 
important  than  religious  impulse — as  food  is  more  im 
portant  than  artificial  stimulants  or  medicine.  A  mode 
rate  daylight  is  more  favorable  to  the  discovery  and 
pursuit  of  our  spiritual  journey  than  flashes  of  light 
ning.  Intelligent  principles  of  religious  conduct  are 
more  useful  and  decisive  than  the  most  enthusiastic 
emotions.  The  habitual  application  of  unexcited  con 
scientiousness  to  the  daily  duties  of  life,  is  a  far  more 
acceptable  and  more  saving  experience  than  any  exalted 
frame  of  sensibility  into  which  the  soul  can  be  raised 
for  a  few  hours,  or  days,  or  weeks. 

The  world  is  indebted  for  its  real  progress  in  truth, 
virtue  and  godliness,  to  religious  knowledge.  I  do  not 
mean  the  illumination  of  one  faculty  called  the  intel 
lect,  but  of  the  whole  soul  ;  and  religious  knowledge  is 
like  all  other  kinds  of  knowledge  in  this  respect,  that  it 
is  the  fruit  of  patient,  long-continued,  unexciting  in 
struction.  You  cannot  educate  a  youth  in  chemistry 


374  THE    RE-ADJUSTMENT    OF    FAITH. 

by  dazzling  him  with  a  brilliant  experiment  ;  nor  xin 
mechanics,  by  taking  him  into  the  engine-room  of  a 
transatlantic  steamer  and  moving  his  astonishment  at 
the  play  of  valves  and  pistons  and  levers  ;  nor  in  litera 
ture,  by  reading  him  a  tale  that  dissolves  him  in  tears. 
All  these  exceptional  aids  of  education  may  have  their 
place  in  arousing  attention,  firing  zeal,  and  melting  out 
by  a  white-heat  some  obstinate  apathy  ;  for  it  is  not  to 
be  denied,  that  the  most  sudden  surprises  of  feeling, 
brief  glimpses  and  accidental  words,  sometimes  perma 
nently  affect  the  whole  course  of  life  and  character.  But 
no  wise  man  proposes  to  depend  on  these  for  education. 
We  feel  the  vast  necessity  of  a  regular  schooling,  a  pa 
tient,  plodding  training,  in  all  the  practical  professions 
and  callings.  Arid  why  should  that  greatest  of  all 
callings,  our  Christian  vocation,  our  spiritual  education, 
be  trusted  to  any  thing  less  than  a  systematic  culture  ? 
This  is  duly  felt  by  all  religious  teachers,  of  wise  and 
sober  thought,  in  all  bodies — and  is  not  forgotten,  proba 
bly  even  at  this  moment,  by  the  most  earnest  and  active 
movers  in  the  religious  excitement.  But  there  is  no 
doubt  that  the  common  people  in  this  country  have  ac 
quired  an  unfortunate  sense  of  the  relative  importance 
of  the  extraordinary  to  the  ordinary  grace  of  God — and 
of  their  own  relative  dependence  upon  what  is  called 
sudden  conversion,  to  what  ought  to  be  their  main  de 
pendence,  the  regular  converting  influence  of  religious 
truth,  taken  as  the  steady  nourishment  of  life.  If  we 
had  an  ideal  Church  and  Christianity,  conversion,  in 
the  early  sense  of  that  word,  would  be  impossible.  The 
apostles  could  not  have  been  converted  if  they  had  been 
brought  up  Christians.  They  were  Jews,  and  Christi- 


EELIGIOUS    EXCITEMENT.  375 

anity  was  new,  and  they  could  only  receive  it  by  a 
change  of  opinions  and  affections.  Bat  what  room  is 
there  in  the  heart  of  a  child  carefully  and  successfully 
brought  up  in  the  faith  of  Christ,  conscientious,  devout, 
affectionate,  pure  and  good,  for  any  change,  natural  or 
supernatural,  entitled  to  the  appellation  of  conversion .? 
It  is  true,  every  man,  no  matter  how  carefully  educated, 
has  crises  in  his  spiritual  experience,  on  account  of  the 
growing  nature  of  his  mind  and  heart.  He  experiences 
many  successive  changes  of  views  and  feelings,  which 
are  more  or  less  critical  and  important — and  he  may,  in 
his  desire  to  harmonize  and  parallelize  his  experience 
with  apostolic  penitents  or  Bible  characters,  name  them 
by  the  scriptural  phrases.  But  they  do  not  accurately 
and  plainly  correspond  to  them.  It  is,  however,  unfor 
tunately  true,  that  through  parental  neglect  or  filial  in- 
docility,  a  large  majority  of  men  and  women  grow  up 
to  their  full  maturity  in  a  sad  ignorance  of  Christianity 
— with  undisciplined  wills,  undevout  affections  and  dull 
consciences  ; — and  the  awakening  of  such  minds  to  a 
sense  of  their  own  immoral  and  unspiritual  condition  is 
often  as  great  a  revolution  as  the  conversion  of  a  Jew 
to  Christianity.  But,  as  a  rule,  it  is  commonly  not  re 
vival  seasons,  but  the  providence  of  God  in  some  great 
calamity,  bereavement  or  sickness,  acting  upon  a  nature 
which  the  long  and  seemingly  ineffectual  influences  of 
Christian  instruction  had  been  steadily  preparing  for 
this  result,  that  accomplishes  the  awakening  work.  I 
suppose  there  is  rarely  a  Sabbath  in  a  large  Christian 
Church,  where  religion  is  faithfully  and  devoutly  admin 
istered,  in  which  some  single  soul  does  not  see  and  feel, 
as  if  for  the  first  time,  the  truth  and  power  of  the  Gos 


376  THE    RE-ADJUSTMENT    OF    FAITH. 

pel,  and  bring  itself  to  a  sort  of  spiritual  new-birth.  If 
nothing  be  said  about  it,  if  not  made  the  subject  of 
special  confession  to  any  one,  perhaps  so  much  the  bet 
ter.  But  this  will  depend  upon  temperament  and  cir 
cumstances.  I  cannot  doubt,  that,  as  in  a  field  of 
whitening  wheat,  some  head  attains  every  minute  its 
critical  perfection  and  ripeness,  of  which  it  gives  no 
marked  indication  to  the  distant  eye — so,  in  a  congre 
gation  of  Christians,  the  real  conversions,  though  special 
and  individual,  are,  as  a  rule,  noiseless  ;  they  occur  in 
the  ordinary  course  of  religious  instruction  ;  are  not 
best  and  most  permanent  in  times  of  excitement  ;  and 
are  less  marked  and  formal  in  precise  proportion  to  the 
thoroughness  of  the  general  training  of  the  moral  pow 
ers  and  religious  faculties. 

No  candid  observer  will  deny  that  the  expectation 
or  theory  of  conversion,  which  is  given  out  and  main 
tained  by  theologians  and  preachers,  will  be  likely  to 
color  and  shape  the  alleged  experiences  which  occur 
under  the  guidance  and  inspiration  of  that  theory. 
Suppose  it  be  given  out,  boldly  and  persistently, 
that  a  religious  experience  has  two  great  phases  ;  that 
it  consists,  first,  in  very  heavy  and  despairing  feelings, 
in  which  the  sense  of  sin  presses  like  an  insupportable 
burden  on  the  soul ;  and  second,  in  a  sudden  sense  of 
relief,  a  feeling  of  pardon,  of  inexpressible  lightness  of 
heart  and  joy  in  God,  accompanied  by  a  sensible  and 
half-material  illumination  called  glory  ;  is  it  not  in  ac 
cordance  with  all  the  laws  of  human  nature  that  the 
actual,  honest  experiences  of  the  souls  under  a  religious 
excitement  directed  by  the  propagators  of  this  theory, 
will  be  in  precise  accordance  with  it  ?  If,  moreover, 


KELIGIOUS    EXCITEMENT.  377 

those  who  have  been  mentally  manipulated  into  this 
double  experience  send  out  their  groans  of  despair,  and 
then  shout  out  their  glorys  of  deliverance,  as  their 
souls  experience  these  easily  excited  feelings,  what 
enormous  propagation  to  this  theory  and  its  corre 
sponding  experience  will  not  be  given  !  Does  any  one 
believe  that,  not  having  heard  of  the  theory,  the  expe 
riences  would  take  this  precise  form  ?  No  student  of 
mental  phenomena  can  for  an  instant  ignore  the  opera 
tion  of  the  general  principle  by  which  this  delusion  is 
maintained.  The  reality  of  the  despair,  or  of  the  joy, 
is  not  denied,  even  in  the  cases  where  no  permanent 
religious  effects  follow.  All  that  is  denied  is  the  divine 
or  supernatural,  or  even  the  peculiarly  Christian  char 
acter,  of  these  well-known  dualisms,  or  oscillations  of 
feeling,  known  to  all  religions,  practised  in  all  delusions, 
whether  political,  spiritualistic,  or  dramatic,  and  based 
upon  well-understood  operations  of  human  nature. 

If,  on  the  other  hand,  religion  be  administered  upon 
the  theory  of  no  violent  changes  ;  if  the  attention  of 
the  people  be  steadily  guided  to  the  importance  of  fix 
ing  their  principles  by  regular  reference  to  the  will  of 
God,  illuminating  their  consciences  by  habitual  self- 
examination  and  prayer,  and  establishing  their  lives  in 
sound,  moral,  and  religious  habits,  their  interest,  sensi 
bility  and  affections,  will  all  expend  themselves  in  this 
diffusive  way.  They  will  not  be  waiting  on  times  and 
seasons  ;  expecting  freshets  of  feeling,  or  postponing 
their  religious  emotions  and  duties  to  some  hoped  for, 
but  uncertain  period  of  revival.  And  if  any  such 
period  come  in  the  communities  where  they  dwell,  they 
are  not  likely  to  be  greatly  moved  by  it,  because  they 


378  THE    RE-ADJUSTMENT    OF    FAITH. 

are  at  home  with  the  Spirit  of  truth,  not  in  the  excite 
ment  of  entertaining  a  rare  and  mysterious  guest. 

To  sum  up,  then,  the  whole  matter.  A  judicious, 
thorough,  and  truly  evangelical  ministry  would  be  one 
in  which  religious  education,  instruction,  and  training 
would  be  the  grand  and  patient  dependence,  and  in  its 
ideal  perfection  special  seasons  of  religious  excitement, 
or  great  crises  in  personal  character,  would  be  impossi 
ble.  The  souls  of  the  flock  would  have  their  daily 
bread  and  their  ever-running  well  of  water,  and  never 
experience  either  the  intoxication  or  the  gorging  which 
follows  abstinence  from  both.  It  is  a  sign  of  unsuc 
cessful  and  imperfect  religious  training,  when  sudden 
conversions  occur  in  adult  age.  It  is  a  blessed  thing 
to  have  the  thoughtless  awakened,  but  it  is  a  melan 
choly  fact,  and  a  terrible  criticism  on  our  Christian 
systems,  that  so  many  thoughtless  souls  remain  to  be 
thus  awakened  under  Christian  institutions  and  influ 
ences.  The  great  harvest  that  is  now  gathering  in,  is 
a  sad  commentary  on  the  multitude  of  sinners  which 
have  escaped  the  sickle  these  many  years  past.  And 
it  is  a  dangerous  error  if  those  who  are  converted  under 
sudden  pressure  of  popular  feeling,  imagine  that  any 
thoroughness  of  revolution,  any  sincerity  of  conversion, 
can  do  the  work  of  these  long  years  of  self-neglect, 
these  thoughtless,  soul-spoiling,  spirit-blinding  years 
of  misspent  time  and  feeling.  Emotion  can  do  some 
thing,  can  do  much  for  the  soul,  but  it  cannot  do 
time's  great  and  solemn  work.  It  cannot  form  habits, 
nor  break  their  power.  It  does  not  break  their  power, 
even  when  it  breaks  them  up.  The  drunkard  who 
quits  his  cup,  after  years  of  self-indulgence,  is  a  hero, 


RELIGIOUS    EXCITEMENT.  379 

but  he  has  a  drunkard's  body  and  a  drunkard's  soul. 
And  the  old  and  hardened  sinner,  converted  and  truly 
turned  round  by  an  awakening  providence  of  God,  has 
a  sinner's  body  and  soul.  He  carries  the  stiffness,  the 
narrowness,  the  inexperience  of  his  old  life  into  his 
new.  He  may  well  be  called  a  child  of  God,  if  it  be 
not  truer  still  to  call  him  a  babe.  His  religious  char 
acter  will  be  not  childlike,  but  childish  ;  sincere  indeed, 
and  blessedly  changed,  but  not  entitled  to  take  its 
place  on  the  level  of  long  and  patiently  disciplined  re 
ligious  characters. 

We  must  welcome,  then,  religious  revivals,  as  we 
welcome  a  violent  thunder  shower  after  a  long  drought. 
True,  it  tears  up  the  roads  and  injures  the  bridges,  but 
it  saves  the  crops.  But  this  is  the  best  it  can  do.  It 
does  not  produce  the  effects  of  the  early  and  latter 
rain.  The  farmer  does  not  want  occasional  violent 
thunder  storms,  but  frequent  and  gentle  and  steady 
rain.  He  cannot  have  large  and  fine  crops  upon  any 
other  condition.  But  if  rain  will  only  come  in  thunder- 
gusts,  better  these  than  drought  and  famine. 

Let  our  own  attention,  my  brethren,  be  directed  to 
the  importance  of  a  better  improvement  of  the  ordinary 
and  usual  means  of  divine  grace — a  better  use  of  the 
calm  and  sober  views  and  instruments  commended  to 
us  by  the  rational  system  of  faith  it  is  our  privilege  to 
find  in  the  New  Testament.  There  is  none  too  much 
excitement  in  this  community  about  religion.  It  is  a 
sadly  irreligious  community  ;  and  I  believe  that  the 
one-sided,  half-enlightened,  half-honest  notions  of  re 
ligion,  maintained  by  the  creeds  of  our  churches — views 
which  keep  up  the  mysterious,  irrational,  unscientific, 


380  THE    RE-ADJUSTMENT    OF    FAITH. 

and  incoherent  ideas  of  a  past  age — are  to  no  inconsid 
erable  view  responsible  for  the  gross  immorality,  the 
gross  infidelity,  the  still  grosser  materialism,  and  the 
astounding  apathy  of  the  people  at  large,  to  the  real 
significance,  the  practical  breadth  and  thoroughness, 
the  noble  symplicity  and  rationality  of  the  religion  of 
the  New  Testament.  I  believe,  with  all  my  heart, 
that  an  erroneous  theology  is,  to  no  small  extent,  the 
cause  of  the  weakness  which  organized  religion  exhibits 
in  its  contest  with  worldliness  ;  and  that  the  present 
arousing  of  the  people  from  their  apathy  is  not  due  to 
the  zeal  and  skill,  or  even  to  the  leading  of  religious 
teachers,  but  to  an  irrepressible  outburst  of  the  pent-up 
religious  sentiment,  which  has  at  length  reacted  upon 
an  indifference  which  material  prosperity  and  false  doc 
trine  together  have  brought  upon  the  community. 
The  people  are  ahead  of  their  teachers  in  this  matter, 
and  their  teachers  are  compelled  to  follow  their  lead. 
It  is  laymen  who  carry  the  whip  and  the  spur  in  this 
race,  and  laymen,  some  of  them  fresh  from  nefarious 
transactions  and  atrocious  sins.  How  wise  their  guid 
ance  is  likely  to  be,  bow  permanent  their  zeal,  you  may 
judge  !  But  of  their  sincerity  I  doubt  not.  It  is  the 
sincerity  of  a  God-given  religious  nature,  that  now  and 
then  bursts  forth  in  the  worst  men  from  the  bondage 
of  years  of  apathy,  and  like  an  overloaded  blood-vessel, 
spurts  forth  with  startling  energy  its  gory  current  into 
the  very  faces  of  men,  amid  general  panic  and  universal 
wonder. 

Amid  these  events,  it  is  the  vast  and  glorious  part 
which  true  religion  has,  or  ought  to  have,  in  our  hearts 


RELIGIOUS    EXCITEMENT.  381 

and  lives,  and  in  those  of  our  children,  which  should 
arrest  or  sharpen  our  attention.  Let  us  carefully  con 
sider  whether  we  are  true  to  our  own  glorious  faith, 
faithful  to  the  blessed  conceptions  of  God,  our  hoi}7  and 
righteous  and  all-loving  Father — of  Christ,  our  head, 
exemplar,  teacher,  inspirer,  elder  brother,  shepherd, 
bishop,  and  Saviour  !  of  our  human  nature,  image  of 
G-od's  own,  with  its  transcendent  wealth  of  faculties 
and  affections  ;  of  the  world,  great  school-house  and 
play-ground,  symbolic  gallery  and  heaven-tuned  orches 
tra  that  it  is  ;  of  life,  divine  gift,  significant  and  por 
tentous  endowment,  open  mystery  and  perpetual  mira 
cle,  that  we  find  it  ;  of  society,  outgrowth  and  incarna 
tion  of  human  nature,  full  of  lessons,  warnings,  gifts, 
and  consolations  ; — are  we  faithful  to  our  large,  broad, 
thorough,  and  ennobling  conceptions  of  vthese  splendid 
and  holy  truths — the  conceptions  of  the  honest,  brave, 
and  pious  men  who  achieved  our  spiritual  independence 
and  founded  our  liberal  Christianity,  and  the  heritage 
of  the  coming  generations,  if  we  transmit  them  with 
the  eloquence  of  a  courageous  adhesion,  and  a  conscien 
tious  embodiment,  in  our  lives  and  characters  ? 

Let  us  hold  fast  to  what  is  good,  and  from  the 
serene  heights  of  our  own  clear  and  beloved  faith  look 
with  piercing  eyes  into  the  face  of  error  and  fanaticism 
— acknowledging  whatever  good  is  found  in  their  com 
pany,  and  welcoming  every  indication  of  progress,  of 
sincerity,  of  vitality,  but  steadily  plying  our  own  well- 
tried  means  and  instruments  for  our  own  moral  and 
spiritual  good — relying  on  our  own  views  of  duty, 
truth,  and  godliness,  while  we  give  a  fresh  and  invig- 


382  THE    RE-ADJUSTMENT    OF    FAITH. 

orated  attention  to  our  religious  duties  and  self-disci 
pline,  and  a  more  careful  heed  to  our  daily  walk  and 
conversation,  in  the  light  of  that  pure  Christianity  we 
profess. 

MARCH  14,  1858, 


SERMON  XXIII. 

SPIRITUALISM    AND  FORMALISM:    THEIR    RELATIONS  TO    THE 
FORMATION    OF  THE    RELIGIOUS    CHARACTER. 

"Woe  unto  you  Scribes  and  Pharisees,  hypocrites,  for  ye  pay  tithe  of  mint 
and  anise  and  cummin,  and  have  omitted  the  weightier  matters  of  the 
law,  judgment,  mercy  and  faith ;  these  ought  ye  to  have  done  and  not 
to  leave  the  other  undone." — MATT,  xxiii.  28. 

A  CONSIDERABLE  portion  of  the  Christian  world  is 
now  passing  through  its  annual  season  of  special  atten 
tion  to  religious  offices.  For  the  space  of  forty  days, 
known  in  the  Catholic  and  Episcopal  Churches  as  Lent,  a 
more  or  less  rigid  abstinence  from  carnal  indulgences, 
public  pleasures  and  worldly  pursuits,  is  enjoined,  and  a 
round  of  devotional  duties  prescribed,  some  of  a  public 
and  others  of  a  private  nature.  It  is  not  my  purpose  to 
disparage  this  custom,  although  the  text  may  seem  to 
threaten  it.  A  truly  thoughtful  mind,  acquainted  with 
the  slippery  hold  which  moral  and  religious  duties  and 
sensibilities  have  upon  our  inconstant  nature,  could  not 
object  to  this  usage  of  the  Mother  Church  and  her 
English  daughter ;  but  could  only  regret  that  it  did 


384  THE    RE-ADJUSTMENT    OF    FAITH. 

not  better  accomplish  its  objeot  ;  that  the  minds  and 
hearts  of  men  and  women  were  not,  by  its  method, 
fixed  more  decidedly  upon  serious  themes,  and  corre 
spondingly  withdrawn  from  frivolous,  or  selfish  and  tem 
porary  pursuits.  For  certainly  there  can  be  no  real 
dispute  among  intelligent  people  as  to  the  end  aimed  at 
in  religious  institutions  and  usages,  whether  among 
Catholics  or  Protestants,  by  formalists  or  spiritualists, 
by  advocates  of  times  and  seasons,  or  by  despisers  of 
both.  That  end  is  the  moral  and  spiritual  elevation 
of  man  ;  his  subjection  to  the  will  of  God  ;  the  forma 
tion  within  him  of  a  pure,  noble,  conscientious  and 
reverent  character,  which  shall  outwardly  show  itself  in 
the  beauty  of  his  daily  life  and  conduct.  This  is  what 
the  enlightened  Catholic  and  Episcopalian  seeks,  what 
the  intelligent  Protestant  and  Puritan  seeks.  Their 
disagreement  is  mainly  one  respecting  means,  and  not 
respecting  ends.  In  one  sense,  there  is  among  them,  it 
may  be  confessed,  a  dispute  about  ends  also  ;  but  it  is 
rather  a  question  about  words  than  things.  It  is  this  : 
whether  life  be  for  religion,  or  religion  for  life  ;  whether 
man  lives  to  glorify  God,  or  to  be  glorified  by  God  ? 
The  old  Church,  with  most  of  its  derivatives,  has 
maintained  that  the  end  of  life  is  religion  ;  that  to 
know  God,  and  love  and  worship  him,  is  the  final  cause 
of  our  being  ;  that  God  created  man  for  his  own  glory,  is 
literally  jealous  of  his  service,  and  has  made  salvation 
wholly  dependent  upon  obedience  to  his  arbitrary  sove 
reignty.  The  new  Church,  to  which  we  belong — with 
a  large  portion  of  Protestantism  that  does  not  yet  accu 
rately  know  its  own  real  position — maintains  that  the 
Almighty  made  man,  not  for  his  own  glory,  as  that 


SPIRITUALISM    AND    FORMALISM.  385 

phrase  is  popularly  understood,  but,  in  the  exercise  of 
his  perfect  benevolence,  that  the  creature  might  share 
a  rational  and  moral  existence  with  his  Creator  ;  that 
God  might  communicate  his-  glory,  and  thus  increase 
and  multiply  the  blessedness  of  the  universe.  Accord 
ing  to  this  latter  theory,  God's  glory  is  in  no  peril — 
gains  and  loses  nothing  by  us,  our  obedience  or  hom 
age  being  in  no  degree  essential  to  the  Perfect  One. 
"  God  is  not  worshipped  at  our  hands,  as  though  he 
needed  any  thing,  seeing  he  giveth  life  and  breath  and 
all  things."  The  benefit  of  creation  is  essentially  our 
own.  God  presents  himself  for  worship,  not  for  his  own 
sake,  but  for  our  sake  !  He  makes  himself  known,  not 
that  he  may  enjoy  the  glory  of  our  obedience,  but  that 
we  may  have  the  privilege,  through  the  knowledge  and 
obedience  he  allows  us,  of  discovering  the  secret  and 
enjoying  the  blessedness  of  a  divine  life.  Keligion, 
therefore,  is  not  the  end,  but  the  method,  of  a  true  life. 
A  true  life  is  a  life  of  mental  and  moral  activity,  of 
sympathetic  friendship  with  men,  of  aspiration  towards 
the  highest,  of  love  for  exalted  intelligences  and  char 
acters,  and  a  supreme  love  of  God,  as  the  alone  perfect 
and  absolutely  good.  According  as  men  have  thought 
God  jealous  of  his  own  glory,  or  thought  him  jealous  of 
our  happiness,  desirous  of  being  worshipped  for  his  own 
sake,  or  desirous  of  being  worshipped  that  he  might 
thus  draw  his  children  towards  the  only  fountain  of  un 
dying  joy,  have  their  ideas  of  religious  methods  and 
usages  partaken  of  a  theoretical  or  a  practical  charac 
ter  ;  of  a  sentimental  or  a  beneficent  form.  The  old 
sacrificial  system  of  the  Jews,  and  that  new  sacri 
ficial  system  of  Christians,  called  the  atonement, 
17 


386  THE    RE-ADJUSTMENT    OF    FAITH. 

is  based  upon  the  notion  that  God  has  his  own  glory  to 
tremble  for,  and  is  largely  though  not  exclusively  con 
cerned  to  save  his  own  honor  and  conscience  ;  while  the 
new  light  that  is  springing  to  its  meridian,  discards 
these  puerile  conceptions  of  a  God  whose  throne  can  be 
shaken  by  pigmies  ;  and  makes  religion  a  concern  of 
our  own,  from  the  neglect  of  which  we  are  the  only 
sufferers — a  system  and  method  that  seeks  our  spiritual 
development  and  glory,  not  the  suspended  happiness  or 
the  unperilled  honor  of  Him  "  with  whom  is  no  varia 
bleness,  neither  shadow  of  turning,"  who  dwelleth  in 
light  inaccessible  and  full  of  glory. 

This,  certainly,  is  not  an  unimportant  difference  of 
opinion  ;  and  yet,  among  those  who  seriously  adopt 
either  view — that  man  is  made  for  religion,  or  that  re 
ligion  is  made  for  man — a  not  dissimilar  result  of  char 
acter  may  be  looked  for.  For,  we  cannot  live  to  God's 
glory  without  finding  it  to  be  for  our  own  happiness  ; 
nor  can  we  live  for  our  own  highest  happiness  without 
living  to  God's  glory.  He  who  consecrates  life  to  re 
ligion  with  an  intelligent  sense  of  what  religion  is, 
"  Love  to  God  and  love  to  man/'  and  he  who  uses  re 
ligion  to  guide  and  glorify  life,  although  they  have  dif 
ferent  ways  of  stating  their  aim,  will  really  both  arrive 
essentially  at  the  same  goal — a  pure,  humble,  loving 
and  worshipful  character.  To  one,  worship  may  be 
the  most  imperative  and  the  most  formal  of  duties  ;  to 
the  other  it  may  be  only  the  greatest  of  privileges  and 
the  most  varied  of  offerings  ;  to  one  God  may  be  the 
most  jealous  of  sovereigns,  to  the  other  only  the  most 
attractive  and  exclusively  lovable  of  intelligences  ;  yet 
the  effect  of  the  contemplation  and  adoration  of  perfect 


SPIRITUALISM  AND  FORMALISM.  387 

goodness  and  holiness  must  always  be  essentially  the 
same.  And  whether  man  were  seeking  God's  glory  or 
his  own  bliss,  experience  would  sooner  or  later  teach  all 
persevering  pursuers  of  either,  that  their  paths  were 
identical  ;  that  whether  God  were  seeking  his  own 
glory  or  our  happiness,  he  could  do  only  one  thing  in 
relation  to  ourselves,  i.  e.,  lay  upon  us  the  ennobling 
obligation  of  the  first  commandment,  "  Thou  shalt  love 
the  Lord  thy  God  with  all  thy  heart,  and  with  all  thy 
mind,  and  with  all  thy  strength/' 

It  matters,  therefore,  less  than  at  first  appeared, 
whether  we  make  worship  an  end  in  itself,  or  a  means. 
Practised  as  an  end,  it  is  found  to  be  a  means  ;  adopted 
as  a  means,  it  is  proved  to  be  an  end.  We  cannot  be 
happy  without  resembling  God  ;  we  cannot  resemble 
God  without  contemplating  his  character  ;  we  cannot 
contemplate  his  character  without  adoring  him  ;  we 
cannot  adore  him  without  experiencing  the  bliss  of 
worship  ;  we  cannot  taste  this  bliss  without  discover 
ing  that  God  is  the  fountain,  and  joy  and  glory,  of  our 
life  ;  and  that  to  praise  and  love  and  adore  him,  is  the 
real  business  and  the  true  pleasure  of  moral  existence — 
the  beginning,  and  middle,  and  unending  direction  in 
the  pursuit  of  blessedness  and  immortality. 

Nor  can  there  be  any  essential  difference  between 
those  who  begin  with  worship  to  end  in  practical  be 
nevolence  and  brotherly  love,  and  those  who  begin  with 
fidelity  in  duty,  to  end  in  adoration.  I  do  not  believe 
that  anybody  was  ever  faithful  to  what  are  called 
strictly  religious  duties — that  is,  to  meditation  and 
prayer,  and  the  contemplation  of  Christ  and  God — who 
did  not  soon  perceive  the  necessity  of  strict  truth,  exact 


388  THE    RE-ADJUSTMENT    OF    FAITH. 

justice,  active  usefulness,  and  practical  goodness  towards 
men  ;  nor  was  there  probably  ever  a  truly  scrupulous 
%lover  and  server  of  his  kind,  a  man  deeply  and  heartily 
in  earnest  in  regard  to  right  and  just  and  virtuous 
living,  who  did  not  come  to  feel  the  presence  of  God  in 
his  soul — the  need  he  had  of  knowing,  and  loving,  and 
adoring  his  Maker.  There  is  no  such  gulf  between  the 
duties  we  owe  God  and  man — no  such  partition  between 
morality  and  piety,  beneficence  and  adoration — as  it 
pleases  some  theorists  to  lay  down.  Because  some  de 
voted  lovers  of  their  race  have  not  been  churchmen,  or 
even  open  worshippers  of  God,  it  has  been  rashly  con 
cluded  that  they  lacked  the  experience  of  inward  de- 
voutness.  It  is  a  misfortune,  indeed,  when  any  man 
separates  himself  from  the  religious  customs  and  exter 
nal  worship  of  his  day  and  generation.  It  is  never  wise 
to  indulge  such  eccentricities  of  conduct.  But  these 
deviations  from  usage  are  not  to  be  considered  necessary 
proofs  of  irreverence,  or  even  of  actual  neglect  of  wor 
ship.  And  as  a  matter  of  fact,  every  truly  good  man  is 
devout  at  the  core,  and  if  he  pray  not  with  his  lips,  has 
a  hidden  shrine  where  he  meets  God,  and  where  God 
meets  him. 

We  return,  then,  to  the  point  we  started  from. 
There  is  no  real  dispute  as  to  the  end  aimed  at  by  sober 
Christians  in  the  use  or  disuse  of  times  and  seasons. 
As  the  Apostle  Paul  says,  with  noble  liberality,  "  He 
that  regardeth  the  day,  regardeth  it  to  the  Lord  ;  and 
he  that  'regardeth  it  not,  to  the  Lord  he  doth  not  regard 
it."  He  that  keeps  Lent,  keeps  it  for  the  deepening  of 
his  religious  nature,  the  better  knowledge  of  his  duty, 
the  more  patient  contemplation  of  his  Saviour,  and  the 


SPIRITUALISM    AND    FORMALISM.  389 

more  connected  worship  of  his  God.  He  that  keeps  it 
not,  keeps  it  not  because  he  fears  that  the  setting  aside 
of  a  special  forty  days  for  this  duty  may  seem  to  imply 
that  it  is  less  incumbent  on  him  for  the  other  three 
hundred  and  twenty-five  days  ;  he  doubts  the  wisdom 
or  necessity  of  emphasizing  times  and  seasons,  and  is 
afraid  of  public  forms  and  ecclesiastical  appointments. 

Those  who  sincerely  observe,  and  those  who  sin 
cerely  neglect,  this  Church  season,  then,  are  equally 
Christian  in  their  reasons  ;  and  perfect  respect  should 
be  paid  to  the  convictions  of  both.  I  suppose  the  dis 
respect  which  those  who  neglect  it  express  or  feel  to 
wards  those  who  observe  it,  is  really  based  upon  the 
conviction,  that  they  mostly  do  not  observe  it  "  in  spirit 
and  in  truth  ; "  that  it  is,  after  all,  with  the  majority, 
rather  a  form  than  a  substance,  a  show  than  a  duty — 
superstition  rather  than  piety  ;  while,  on  the  other  hand, 
the  disrespect  which  the  observers  feel  for  the  non- 
observers,  is  based  upon  their  notice,  that  the  disuse  of 
formal  religion  does  not  mend  practical  piety  ;  that 
they  do  not  make  the  three  hundred  and  sixty-five  days 
— all  of  which  they  profess  to  consecrate— any  the  bet 
ter  for  neglecting  the  forty  days  of  special  piety.  And 
this  is  the  real  question  between  the  upholders  of  eccle 
siastical  religion  and  the  defenders  of  spontaneous  reli 
gion  ;  between  the  formalists  and  the  anti-formalists. 
It  is  wholly  a  question  of  fact,  and  not  a  question  of 
principle. 

ft  is  conceded  by  both,  that  the  true  aim  of  man  is 
the  supreme  love  of  God  and  the  brotherly  love  of  man 
— that  a  devout,  just,  affectionate  character,  is  what  we 
are  all  to  seek — a  real  character,  internally  and  exter- 


390  THE    RE-ADJUSTMENT    OF    FAITH. 

nally  upright,  pure,  aspiring,  reverentir.l.  How  to  form 
this  character  is  the  question.  And  on  this  point  there 
are  two  answers.  Commit  man  to  the  Church,  says 
the  formalist ;  pass  him  through  the  discipline  of  times 
and  seasons  ;  stamp  him  deep  with  early  religious  hab 
its  ;  frame  his  lips,  before  he  knows  why,  into  prayers  ; 
work  upon  his  imagination  with  symbols,  pictures,  ar 
chitecture,  costumes,  until  it  is  inextricably  intertwined 
with  sacred  associations.  Make  him  the  subject  of  a 
ritual  which  shall  remind  him,  every  time  he  rises,  or 
eats,  or  lies  down,  every  time  the  hour  of  the  day  is 
struck  from  the  bell-tower,  of  his  relations  to  his  Maker 
and  his  Saviour,  and  thus  fashion  him,  by  a  lifelong 
discipline,  into  a  religious  being  !  But,  replies  the  anti- 
formalist,  how  has  this  system  worked  ?  Worked  ? 
answers  the  ecclesiastic.  Look  at  its  fruits  !  Whence 
came  the  piety  that  has  built  up  the  magnificent  hier 
archy  of  the  Roman  Church  ?  What  a  mighty  sense 
of  religion  must  have  produced  the  splendid  cathedrals, 
the  glorious  pictures,  the  hospitals  and  retreats,  of  the 
Catholic  world,  and  given  the  transcendent  power  to 
Peter's  successor  to  abase  emperors  and  monarchs  at 
the  feet  of  the  Papal  throne  !  Look  at  the  fidelity  to 
that  faith,  which,  in  a  free  country  like  ours,  could 
rally  such  a  procession  as  we  beheld  on  Thursday  last,1 
in  honor  of  one  of  its  patron  saints  !  Or,  look  at  the 
glories  of  the  Church  of  England  !  Yes,  replies  the 
anti-formalist,  but  is  not  this  splendid  ritual,  and  this 
self-sacrificing  fidelity  to  the  Church,  rather  a  substitute 
for  true  religion,  and  a  bar  to  the  understanding  of  the 

1  St.  Patrick's  Day. 


SPIRITUALISM    AND    FORMALISM.  391 

real  essence  of  piety,  than  a  true  expression  of  the  act 
ual  faith  of  the  Gospel  ?  May  not  men  be  excellent 
and  devoted  churchmen,  and  still  none  the  better  for  it 
in  their  real  and  spiritual  character  ?  And  do  we  find, 
as  a  rule,  among  undoubting  churchmen,  purity  of  life 
and  the  fruits  of  the  religious  character  ?  Have  we 
not  "  the  form  of  godliness  without  the  power,"  in  ec 
clesiastical  usages  and  in  the  characters  they  nourish  ? 
Of  course,  the  formalist  cannot  concede  this.  If  he  is 
frank,  he  will  say,  I  own  that  ecclesiasticism,  in  its  best 
present  successes,  leaves  the  character  of  the  majority 
who  come  under  its  sway  too  little  affected.  But  I 
deny  that  any  other  system  could  do  as  much  as  the 
Church  system  has  done  t&  sanctify  and  redeem  the 
world.  I  allow  that  a  vast  proportion  of  all  Komanists 
or  Established  Church-men — English,  Greek,  Kussian 
— are  poor  specimens  of  the  Christian  life  and  charac 
ter.  But  do  you  consider  the  ignorance,  crudity,  and 
social  degradation  of  those  whom  this  great  system  tries 
to  help  ?  and  could  any  other  system  do  half  as  much 
with  them  ?  On  the  other  hand,  in  proof  that  this 
system  does  not  hinder  practical  or  spiritual  develop 
ment  in  those  prepared  by  other  culture  to  receive  it, 
the  ecclesiastic  may  point  to  the  vast  works  of  charity, 
the  immense  personal  sacrifices,  the  exalted  purity  and 
worth  of  thousands  of  saints,  martyrs,  and  missionaries, 
exhibited  within  the  fold  of  the  Church. 

But  now,  let  us  hear  what  the  anti-formalist  has 
to  say  for  his  principles.  He  starts  from  the  same 
ground  with  the  formalist.  The  object  of  religion  is  to 
form  a  Christian  character,  in  which  love  to  God  and 
man  shall  first  enshrine  and  then  manifest  themselves. 


392  THE    RE-ADJUSTMENT    OF    FAITH. 

How  shall  this  character  be  created  and  established  ? 
Let  a  man  commit  himself,  says  the  anti-formalist,  not 
to  the  Church,  but  to  his  conscience  ;  let  him  find  a 
temple  of  worship  in  this  glorious  universe  which  God 
has  built — an  altar  of  sacrifice,  wherever  a  duty  is  to  be 
done,  or  a  service  to  humanity  to  be  rendered.  Let  his 
religious  symbols,  his  times  and  seasons,  be  the  great 
signs  of  the  zodiac,  the  coming  and  retreating  seasons, 
the  starry  hosts,  the  mighty  ocean,  and  the  tender 
flower.  Why  should  he  hold  one  day  specially  sacred, 
when  all  are  holy  in  God's  sight  ?  Why  any  one  act  of 
his,  specially  religious,  when  all  acts  are  so,  if  done  in 
a  spirit  of  obedience  and  faith  ?  Why  retreat  from  the 
world  into  a  cell  of  prayer,  or  a  cathedral  of  worship,  to 
find  God  ?  Is  he  not  as  present  in  the  din  of  the 
workshop  as  in  the  silence  of  the  cloister ;  in  the 
stirring  crowd,  as  in  the  solitude  of  the  mountain 
height  ?  Why  seek  Jesus  at  the  table  of  communion, 
when  his  favorite  walks  were  among  the  fishers  at  their 
nets,  the  reapers  in  their  harvest-field  ;  by  the  way 
side,  or  among  the  multitudes  at  city  festivals,  or 
with  great  gatherings  on  the  hillsides  of  Judea  ? 
Where  is  his  example  to  be  followed,  if  not  in  the 
ordinary  life  of  the  world  ;  where  his  work  to  be  done, 
within  us,  or  around  us,  if  not  in  the  practice  of 
virtue  and  piety,  rather  than  in  the  profession  of  it  ? 
Are  we  to  believe  that  God  peculiarly  dwells  in 
temples  made  with  hands — lie  who  is  a  spirit,  and  oc 
cupies  all  space  ;  that  he  needs  articulated  prayers — 
he  who  knows  our  thoughts  before  they  are  framed  into 
words  ;  that  sprinklings  and  washings,  that  bread  and 
wine,  that  mediation  of  trained  priests — in  short,  that 


SPIRITUALISM    AND    FORMALISM.  393 

religion  as  a  ritual,  something  in  itself  and  for  itself, 
with  its  own  times,s  seasons,  customs,  and  feelings,  is  ac 
ceptable  to  him  or  necessary  to  us  ?  Away  with  such 
husks  of  form,  such  superstitions  of  the  world's  child 
hood  !  Let  religion  henceforth  he  a  life  ;  and  life  a  re 
ligion.  Let  the  heart,  the  conscience,  the  intellect, 
worship  God  and  serve  man,  and  the  bondage  of  rites 
and  times  and  symbols  and  external  sanctities  wholly 
disappear.  Thus  far  the  anti-formalist. 

But  here  interrupts  the  churchman  :  I  agree  with 
you  entirely  in  the  desirableness  of  thus  universalizing 
religion,  and  making  all  days,  all  acts,  and  all  emotions 
worthy  of  God  and  sacred  to  man.  You  have  only  de 
scribed  the  common  aim  which  all  intelligent  Christians 
seek.  Allow  me  to  remind  you,  however,  that  the  point 
at  issue  is  entirely  as  to  the  means  of  attaining  it. 

Have  you  tried  your  purely  spiritual  and  unsystem 
atic  style  of  religion  ?  Is  there  any  kind  of  anti-eccle- 
siasticism,  anti-ritualism,  anti-external  religion,  which 
has  fully  and  thoroughly  carried  out  your  principles,  and 
if  so,  what  have  been  its  fruits  ?  The  world  has  mil 
lions  of  people  who  despise  and  neglect  all  religious 
usages  and  forms — all  church-going,  all  formal  prayers, 
all  rites  and  seasons  !  Are  these  the  people  whom  you 
adduce  as  the  proofs  of  the  beneficent  influence  of  an 
uncreeded,  unchurched,  informal  piety  ?  Are  these 
the  thorough  spiritual  Christians  with  whom  not  one 
day,  but  all  days,  not  one  place,  but  all  places,  not  one 
act,  but  all  acts,  are  sacred  ?  Surely  not.  And  so  far 
as  these  people  are  concerned — whom  you  will  confess 
to  be  both  immoral,  careless^  reckless  and  irreligious — 
would  it  not,  on  the  whole,  be  better,  even  if  for  them 


394  THE    RE-ADJUSTMENT    OF    FAITH. 

we  could  make  one  day  holy — though  all  the  rest  were 
desecrated — or  any  one  set  of  their  feelings  or  acts  seri 
ous,  or  even  less  frivolous  and  profane  than  the  residue  ? 
But  leaving  this  melancholy  class,  for  whom  religious 
institutions — and  the  more  formal  the  better — seem 
wholly  indispensable,  let  us  in  candor  consider  how  your 
anti-formal  principles  work,  even  in  the  best  hands. 
There  are  thoughtful,  cultivated,  excellent  people,  who 
once  had  all  the  advantages  of  special  religious  training, 
and  who  now  believe  themselves  entitled  to  emancipa 
tion  from  rules  and  symbols,  and  days  and  weeks  ;  who 
think  they  can  trust  their  own  consciences  and  their 
own  hearts,  and  who  mean  and  strive  to  make  the  whole 
of  life  useful  to  man  and  worshipful  toward  God  !  Now, 
as  a  matter  of  fact,  is  it  this  class  of  persons  whose 
moral  heroism,  disinterestedness,  and  Christian  eleva- 
tionj  have  so  far  exceeded  the  rest  of  the  world  that  we 
turn  to  them  as  the  regenerators  of  society,  the  hope  of 
humanity,  the  leaders  of  the  race,  the  great  successors 
of  Christ  and  his  apostles  !  Where  are  these  holy  men 
who  are  too  good  to  need  Church  or  ritual  ?  Where 
are  these  saints,  whose  constant  prayers  no  seventh  day 
suffices  to  contain  ;  where  are  these  reverent  spirits,  to 
whom  all  of  life  is  so  sacred,  that  one  thing  cannot  ex 
ceed  another  in  the  tender  piety  it  awakens  in  their 
bosoms  ?  I  am  afraid,  my  brethren,  that  we  should  be 
obliged,  after  all,  to  go  into  our  churches  in  search  of 
the  most  honest  men,  the  most  active  philanthropists, 
the  most  lowly  and  spiritual  Christians.  I  am  afraid 
that  the  souls  found  most  free  from  the  dominion  o^ 
forms  would  turn-out  to  be  those  who  most  faithfully 
used  them  ;  that  the  most  pious  Mondays  and  Tues- 


SPIRITUALISM    AND    FORMALISM.  395 

days  and  Wednesdays  would  be  found  -to  be  in  the  so 
ciety  of  the  most  pious  Sundays  ;  that  those  who  most 
punctiliously  said  their  prayers  in  Church  would  be 
found  to  be  those  who  most  truly  observed  our  Saviour's 
injunction,  "  Pray  always  ;  "  and  that  those  who  rev 
erenced  rites  and  seasons  most  would  be  found  to  be 
those  who  were  consecrating  life  in  general,  most  en 
tirely  and  successfully  ! 

The  real,  radical  difference  between  the  formalist 
and  the  anti-formalist  in  religion  turns  out  practically 
to  be  this  :  belief  or  unbelief  in  the  use  of  means.  The 
religious  character  acknowledged  by  both  to  be  the 
same  thing,  the  churchman  insists,  will  not  grow,  with 
out  a  specific  culture,  a  regular  systematic  attention 
paid  to  it  at  fixed  times  and  by  fixed  methods.  The 
anti-formalist  insists  that  it  requires  no  specific  atten 
tion,  but  will  grow  better  under  the  influence  of  broad 
general  purposes  of  right  living  and  right  feeling  ;  that 
it  is  narrowed,  hindered,  and  weakened  by  forms  and 
ceremonies,  and  that  thus  religion,  from  a  life,  is  con 
verted  into  a  ritual. 

Now,  my  brethren,  I  am  not  going  to  say  that  forms 
have  not  tended  to  great  excess — have  not  often  run 
into  superstitions — hardened  into  chains  for  the  mind 
and  heart.  The  Church  has  at  times  become  a  prison. 
Protestantism  was  a  violent  and  necessary  reaction 
upon  the  externality  of  religion,  and  liberal  Christianity 
a  still  plainer  protest  against  the  bondage  of  the  intel 
lect,  exercised  by  creeds,  and  priests,  and  ceremonies. 
But  I  hold  that  the  abuse  of  forms,  and  symbols,  and 
externals  in  religion,  forms  as  silly  and  weak  an  argu 
ment  for  their  abandonment  as  the  abuse  of  food  would 


396  THE    RE-ADJUSTMENT    OF    FAITH. 

for  its  disuse,  or  of  pleasure  for  its  extinction,  or  of  lib 
erty  for  itti  suppression.  Every  great  attribute  of  our 
nature,  besides  its  general  play,  must  have  its  particu 
lar  and  exclusive  sphere.  We  trust  neither  morality, 
nor  law,  nor  amusement,  nor  social  intercourse,  nor 
business,  nor  domestic  economy,  to  informal  and  spon 
taneous  operations.  They  all  require  to  be  fastened 
down  to  rules.  We  take  our  meals,  not  when  we  are 
hungry,  but  at  fixed  hours  ;  we  visit,  not  whom  we 
please,  but  where  we  are  invited  ;  we  seek  our  pleas 
ures,  not  at  all  hours  and  everywhere,  but  at  appropri 
ate  times  and  places  ;  we  do  our  business  within  bank 
hours  ;  we  wash,  we  iron,  we  bake,  we  brew,  we  settle 
our  accounts,  we  change  our  clothes  and  our  houses,  we 
pay  our  bills,  our  rents,  our  taxes,  at  fixed  times  and 
places.  We  get  our  secular  education  within  certain 
fixed  limits  of  age,  and  by  means  of  certain  established 
customs.  We  acquire  our  commercial  and  ^professional 
training  by  careful  apprenticeship.  Is  it  only  religion 
that  is  of  such  general,  profound,  and  universal  impor 
tance,  that  we  need  not  have  any  particular  and  careful 
methods  of  cultivating  it  ?  Is  it  only  our  consciences, 
affections,  mental  habits  and  wills,  that  need  no  special 
instruction,  training,  support,  and  encouragement  ? 
There  never  was  a  greater  folly  in  the  world.  You 
might  as  well  say  that  wine  and  vinegar  and  medi 
cine,  being  seldom  used,  required  care  in  their  prepara 
tion,  importation,  and  protection ;  but  that  water  was 
worthy  of  no  attention,  no  expense,  no  care  in  procur 
ing,  protecting,  and  keeping  it,  because  we  want  it 
every  day  !  Let  us,  therefore,  neglect  the  costly  aque 
duct  that  brings  it,  Ihe  pipes  that  feed  our  dwellings, 


SPIRITUALISM    AND    FORMALISM.  397 

the  tax  that  secures  our  right  to  its  use  !  If  we  wanted 
it  only  once  a  month,  we  might  then  devote  some 
thought  to  it  ;  or  if  it  were  not  of  universal  use — if  we 
wanted  it  only  for  .drink,  and  not  for  cooking,  for  wash 
ing,  for  cleansing — then  we  might  establish  some  meth 
ods  for  its  supply.  But  being  of  universal  importance, 
why  pay  any  special  attention  to  it  ?  Is  not  this  about 
the  nature  of  the  argument  against  the  formal,  system 
atic  culture  of  religion  ? 

Religion  is  a  matter  of  daily  life  ;  of  universal  im 
portance  ;  of  practical  living  and  feeling.  It  ought  to 
regulate  every  minute  of  existence,  and  every  act  and 
thought  of  the  soul.  Therefore  we  will  pay  no  specific 
attention  to  it ;  we  will  have  no  appointed  means  of 
studying  its  truths,  of  considering  our  relations  to  it  ; 
of  quickening  our  consciences,  stimulating  our  imagina- 
v  tions,  and  regulating  our  hearts  ;  no  sacred  places,  no 
holy  symbols,  no  form  of  prayer,  no  days  of  rest,  no  sea 
sons  of  special  consecration  !  As  if  a  man  should  say, 
I  am  going  to  farm  on  so  very  extensive  a  scale,  that  I 
can  afford  to  devote  no  time  to  studying  agriculture,  or 
to  collecting  the  best  tools,  or  to  arranging  the  order 
and  method  of  my  business  ! 

There  never  was  a  more  dangerous  sophistry  than 
that  which  defends  the  modern  outbreak  of  contempt 
for  religious  forms,  times  and  seasons,  methods  and  dis 
ciplines  !  It  is  equalled  only  by  the  argument  against 
order  of  all  kinds,  in  the  French  Eevolution.  Must  we 
always  be  running  from  one  extreme  to  another  ?  Can 
we  not  abolish  gold  lace,  and  feathered  hats,  and  cum 
brous  trains,  and  the  folly  and  extravagance  of  ancient 
costume,  without  bringing  the  worth  of  clothes  into 


398  THE    RE-ADJUSTMENT    OF    FAITH. 

question  ?  Must  George  Fox  go  naked,  because  the 
king's  courtiers  dressed  like  dolls  ?  Can  we  not  do 
away  with  superstition,  without  doing  away  with  wor 
ship  ?  get  rid  of  poor  forms,  without  giving  up  the 
principle  of  form  itself?  I  hesitate  not  to  say,  that 
the  spirit  of  religion,  in  our  day,  is  perilously  involved 
in  the  neglect  and  suspicion  of  religious  forms.  There 
is  too  much  indifference  to  externals  for  the  good  of  in 
ternals  ;  too  much  religious  license  for  true  religious 
liberty.  Parents  allow  their  children  to  act,  in  their 
ignorance  and  levity,  upon  their  own  responsibility  in 
religious  things  ;  to  think  what  they  please,  to  go  where 
they  please.  They  fail  to  indoctrinate  them ;  to  form 
their  religious  habits  ;  to  teach  them  that  reverence  for 
external  piety  which  is  so  essential.  Nay,  they  do  not 
watch  their  own  spiritual  state,  and  guard  and  culti 
vate  it  within  the  fences  of  correct  opinion  and  judicious 
customs.  They  despise  the  great  experience  of  the 
world  in  regard  to  the  aids  to  be  derived  from  rites  and 
usages.  They  cannot  shut  their  eyes,  nor  bend  their 
knees,  nor  bow  their  heads  in  public  worship.  To  raise 
their  voices  in  a  responsive  service  would  be  the  height 
of  acquiescence  in  anti-puritan  customs  ;  to  observe  the 
days  consecrated  by  the  use  of  the  Christian  Church  for 
a  thousand  years  and  more,  would  be  popish  ;  to  keep 
any  season  of  the  year  with  more  fidelity  than  another 
in  respect  to  religious  self-discipline,  would  be  rank  su 
perstition  ;  to  attach  any  serious  importance  to  bap 
tism  or  the  communion,  a  kind  of  puerility  ;  or  to  hesi 
tate  to  do  any  thing  agreeable  to  oneself  on  Sunday, 
out  of  respect  to  the  day,  a  piece  of  formalism  unworthy 
these  enlightened  times  1 


SPIRITUALISM    AND    FORMALISM.  399 

Let  us  be  above  these  weak  prejudices,  that  drive 
vulgar  minds  only  from  one  extreme  to  another.  Hu 
man  nature  demands  liberty  and  law — spirit  and  form. 
It  needs  emancipation  from  old  ways  and  usages,  that 
it  may  establish  new  ones.  It  does  not  pull  down  its 
religious  house  to  live  out-doors,  but  to  build  a  new 
and  better  one.  We  want  not  the  old  Jewish  or  Puri 
tan  Sabbath  back,  but  we  want  Sunday  to  be  a  day  of 
rest  from  secular  cares,  and  of  religious  culture  and 
worship  ;  we  want  not  the  old  creeds  back,  but  we  need 
a  new  creed  that  shall  express  the  mind  of  Christ  as 
we  now  know  it — leaving  other  generations  to  discard 
our  reading,  if  they  can  make  a  better.  We  want 
neither  the  Romish  nor  the  Episcopal  .forms  of  prayer, 
but  we  need  a  new  Protestant  ritual  of  worship,  that 
shall  not  leave  the  worship  of  the  Lord's  house  at  the 
mercy  of  every  accidental,  incompetent,  and  eccentric 
individual  who  may  chance  to  occupy  the  pulpit.  Sure 
ly  it  ought  to  be  enough  for  the  minister  to  have  his 
individual  opinions  fully  expressed  in  the  sermon,  with 
out  tyrannizing  over  the  whole  congregation  with  the 
moods  of  his  little,  and  mayhap  peculiar  mind,  in  the 
whole  remaining  services.  It  is  a  source  of  unfeigned 
astonishment,  that  congregations  are  willing  to  trust 
the  great  exercises  of  their  public  worship  to  accident, 
and  not  know,  or  have  any  choice  in  settling,  what  they 
shall  pray  for,  or  what  praise  and  confess  ! 

We  want  a  church  year — a  regular  and  well-under 
stood  improvement  of  the  events  in  our  Saviour's  histo 
ry,  sunk  into  the  mind  and  heart  of  the  rising  race,  by 
days  consecrated  to  their  notice  and  keeping.  We 
want,  too,  some  book  containing  the  doctrines,  the 
prayers,  the  means  of  religious  improvement,  of  which 


400  THE    RE-ADJUSTMENT    OF    FAITH. 

experience  has  proved  the  worth,  to  be  the  representa 
tive  of  religious  ideas  and  methods  in  the  home  ;  a  book 
to  carry  from  the  house  to  the  church,  from  the  church  to 
the  house,  binding  both  together,  from  which  children 
could  easily  learn  the  methods  of  piety,  and  which  would 
be  an  external  support  and  guide  in  the  life  of  faith. 

I  doubt  if  candor,  liberality,  and  enlightenment  ex 
ist  in  adequate  degree  to  bring  about  these  immensely 
needed  reforms  in  our  denomination.  But  no  amount 
of  prejudice  on  the  part  of  those  who  have  superficially 
considered  the  subject,  ought  to  prevent  the  freest  ex 
pression  of  opinion  on  the  part  of  those  whose  lives  are 
consecrated  to  the  study  of  the  religious  wants  of  the 
community.  Happily,  all  changes  in  public  worship,  all 
improvements  in  church  usages  in  our  plain  congrega 
tional  bodies,  are  entirely  at  the  disposal,  and  according 
to  the  choice,  of  the  people  themselves.  Nothing  can 
or  ought  to  be  done,  against  the  wishes  even  of  a  re 
spectable  minority,  in  matters  involving  so  many  nice 
feelings  and  respectable  prejudices.  But  it  is  the  duty 
of  those  appointed  to  teach,  to  suggest  improvements  ; 
of  those  with  whom  the  legislative  authority  lies,  to  or 
der  and  act  according  to  their  sovereign  pleasure.  You 
must  appoint  your  own  worship  as  you  will.  It  is  my 
duty  to  conduct  it  according  to  your  directions.  But  I 
hope  you  will  seriously  consider  the  general  direction  of 
thought,  and  the  sober  suggestions  of  this  discourse, 
and  be  prepared,  when  any  definite  question  on  the  sub 
ject  shall  arise,  to  act  with  the  discretion,  the  unanimity, 
and  the  intelligence  becoming  so  grave  a  body  and  so  se 
rious  a  subject. 

MABCH  20,  1859. 


SERMON  XXIV. 

THE  APPLICATION  OF  WORLDLY  WISDOM  TO   UNWORLDLY 
THINGS. 

"  For  the   children  of  this  world  are  in  their  generation  wiser  than  the 
children  of  light." — LUKE  xvi.  8. 

MUCH  of  the  language  of  the  Scriptures,  as  well  of 
the  world,  is  antithetical,  and  intelligible  only  in  the 
mood  of  mind  in  which  it  is  uttered.  It  is  perfectly 
true  as  meant,  and  as  understood,  by  the  parties  to  it ; 
but  it  is  misleading,  when  considered  as  the  prosaic 
ground  of  doctrine  or  practice.  "  If  any  man  come  to 
me  and  hate  not  his  father  and  mother  and  wife  and 
children  and  brethren  and  sisters,  yea  and  his  own  life 
also,  ho  cannot  be  my  disciple,"  is  an  instance  of  this. 
The  text,  as  commonly  used,  is  another  :  "  For  the 
children  of  this  world  are  in  their  generation  wiser 
than  the  children  of  light." 

This  language  is  often  quoted  to  sustain  and  eulo 
gize  that  ignorance  of  the  world  and  absence  of  practi 
cal  judgment  not  seldom  evinced  and  gloried  in  by 
those  deeply  engaged  in  the  religious  life.  "  The  chil 
dren  of  light "  are  commonly  supposed  to  be  here  indi- 


402  THE    RE-ADJUSTMENT    OF   FAITH. 

rectly  praised  by  the  unfavorable  comparison  they  are 
made  to  bear  to  the  "  children  of  the  world,"  in  respect 
to  soundness  of  views  and  discretion  of  conduct  in  the 
ordinary  concerns  of  life.  The  opinions  which  make 
this  contrast  popular  are  deeply  laid  and  widely  spread. 
The  child,  much  more  the  man,  u  of  this  world,"  studies 
the  world  he  lives  in,  learns  the  character  and  ways  of 
men,  explores  the  human  heart,  is  an  adept  in  weighing 
and  gauging  motives  of  action,  in  applying  means  to 
ends  ;  is  prudent,  forecasting,  judicious  ;  does  not  ex 
pect  to  reap  without  sowing,  nor  to  fly  without  wings, 
nor  to  buy  without  money  ;  does  not  disdain  expedi 
ency  and  compromise  ;  would  sooner  any  time  have 
half  a  loaf  than  no  bread,  and  shows  himself  a  cautious, 
calculating,  and  time-serving  person  in  all  his  maxims 
and  methods. 

"  The  child  of  light,"  on  the  contrary,  taking  one 
of  the  most  saintly  degree,  has  little  interest  in  this 
world  ;  his  hopes  and  affections  are  in  another  ;  he 
does  not  wish  to  know  men,  or  their  ways,  motives,  or 
character,  for  fear  of  corrupting  his  own  simplicity  ;  he 
despises  forethought  as  a  distrust  of  Providence,  calcu 
lation  as  a  base  selfishness  ;  prudence  as  a  mean  timid 
ity.  He  that  feeds  the  ravens  will  supply  his  hunger  ; 
he  that  clothes  the  lilies  will  furnish  his  wardrobe. 
Expediency  is  the  snare  of  worldlings,  compromise  the 
collusion  of  infidels.  The  children  of  light  are  guided 
by  principle,  not  by  experience.  They  deal  with  ends, 
not  with  means  ;  and  would  sooner  die  straining  afler 
the  unattainable  than  live  in  tranquil  possession  of  any 
thing  short  of  it. — Is  not  this  a  fair  statement  of  the 
opposite  qualities  and  tempers  which  the  world,  on  the 


WORLDLY    WISDOM.  403 

one  hand,  and  the  Gospel  on  the  other,  demand  from 
their  children  ? 

Accordingly,  the  children  of  the  world  have  usually 
had  the  practical  conduct  of  human  affairs  in  their  own 
hands.  Who  should,  or  could  govern  society,  but 
those  who  believe  in  it  ;  who  would  or  could  carry  on 
the  world,  but  those  who  think  it  worth  carrying  on  ? 
Who  but  the  wise  and  prudent  should  possess  places 
of  power  and  means  of  influence  ?  Indeed,  to  attain 
means  of  influence,  to  aspire  to  and  reach  position  and 
power,  to  have  any  real  part  in  holding  society  together, 
is  it  not  in  itself  proof  of  that  prudential  and  worldly 
temper  supposed  to  be  condemned  by  the  essential 
spirit  of  the  Gospel  ? 

"  The  children  of  light,"  on  the  contrary,  if  they 
pay  any  attention  to  this  world,  or  to  any  existing  in 
stitutions  and  terrestrial  things,  can  do  it  only  in  the 
way  of  criticism,  and  disapprobation  ;  they  can  know 
just  enough  of  politics  to  denounce  it ;  just  enough  of 
commerce  to  testify  against  its  corrupting  and  unchris 
tian  character  ;  just  enough  of  money-making  to  show 
its  wholly  poisonous  and  base  tendencies.  But  their 
thoughts  are  mainly  given  to  an  invisible  kingdom,  and 
to  interests  beyond  the  bounds  of  time  and  space. 

At  any  rate,  such  is  the  way  in  which  "  the  world's 
people,"  meaning  all  who  are  not  professedly  pious,  and 
the  people  of  God,  are  commonly  contrasted.  That 
there  is  some  seeming  authority  in  the  language  of  the 
Scriptures  for  this  contrast,  and  the  separation  it  im 
plies  between  things  terrestrial  and  things  celestial,  be 
tween  the  children  of  the  world  and  the  children  of 
light,  need  not  be  denied.  But  whether  there  be  any 


404  THE    RE-ADJUSTMENT    OF    FAITH. 

real  foundation  in  the  nature  of  things,  the  will  of  God, 
the  Gospel  of  Christ,  and  the  actual  meaning  of  the 
Scriptures,  or  in  the  actual  state  of  things  now,  for  a 
permanent  distinction  of  this  character,  is  the  real 
point  of  practical  inquiry.  If  "  godliness  be  profitable 
unto  all  things,  having  the  promise  of  the  life  that  now 
is,  as  well  as  that  which  is  to  come,"  are  prudence  and 
good  sense  profitable  to  our  present  interests  only,  and 
inimical  to  our  eternal  ones  ?  Is  the  wisdom  of  this 
world  essentially  and  necessarily  fatal  to  that  "  wisdom 
which  is  from  above  ?  "  And  can  the  children  of  light 
continue  to  be  such  only  by  a  steadfast  quenching  of 
all  the  rays  which  the  experience  of  this  world  would 
mingle  with  the  beams  of  their  heavenly  lamp  ? 

It  throws  much  light  upon  this  question  to  observe, 
at  the  very  outset,  that  it  was  not  in  the  way  of  com 
mendation,  but  of  reproach,  that  our -Saviour  said,  "  the 
children  of  this  world  are  in  their  .generation  wiser 
than  the  children  of  light."  The  very  object  of  his 
parable  of  the  unjust  steward,  is  to  exhibit  the  im 
portance  of  that  practical  wisdom,  solidity  of  judgment, 
and  sagacious  employment  of  means,  so  often  used  in 
the  furtherance  of  purely  selfish  objects,  for  the  attain 
ment  and  advantage  of  the  unselfish  objects  of  a  re 
ligious  life  and  character.  Christ  desired  to  stimulate 
the  zeal,  enterprise,  sagacity,  and  prudence  of  his 
spiritual  helpers  who  were  to  be  founders  of  new  re 
ligious  institutions,  by  pointing  out  to  their  emulation 
the  judicious,  prudent,  and  enterprising  methods,  to 
which  an  enlightened  selfishness  gave  birth.  In  recom 
mending  the  imitation  of  the  judicious  means  employed 
by  selfish  and  worldly  persons,  of  course  he  did  not  ap- 


WORLDLY    WISDOM.  405 

prove  and  commend  selfish  ends  or  worldly  aims.  But 
injudicious  and  wicked  ends  may  be  sought  by  judicious 
and  sagacious  means.  You  may  admire  and  approve 
the  beautiful  style  which  conveys  dangerous  ideas, 
without  approving  the  ideas  themselves,  or  praise  the 
handwriting  of  a  forger,  without  being  properly  sus 
pected  of  approving  forgery.  You  may  surely  com 
mend  industry,  zeal,  sagacity,  persistence,  even  though 
the  end  to  which  they  are  perversely  directed  has  your 
utter  detestation.  And  it  is  clear  that  all  the  energies 
and  tastes,  appetites  and  faculties — with  all  the  ex 
perience,  observation,  tact,  and  wisdom — ever  possessed 
by  the  most  consummate  and  accomplished  man  of  the 
world,  might  be  employed  in  and  directed  with  the  high 
est  advantage  to  the  pursuit  and  establishment  of  the 
Christian  character,  and  to  the  living  of  the  Christian 
life.  The  child  of  light,  that  is,  the  soul  that  loves 
the  truth  of  God,  welcomes  its  full  beams,  and  lives  to 
reflect  them  in  his  own  character,  and  to  put  all  other 
souls  under  their  blessed  illumination — cannot  know  too 
much  of  the  world  he  lives  in,  nor  understand  men  too 
well,  nor  have  too  balanced  a  judgment,  too  sagacious 
a  policy,  too  comprehensive  a  plan,  too  nice  a  tact,  too 
sweet  and  engaging  manners,  too  many  accomplish 
ments  !  Let  his  aim  be  what  it  should  be,  let  his  heart 
belong  to  Christ,  and  then,  if  he  were  on  the  throne  of 
an  empire,  and  had  the  wealth  of  Croesus,  the  accom 
plishments  of  Bayard,  and  the  policy  of  Metternich,  it 
could  only  be  for  his  own  good,  and  for  the  blessedness 
of  the  world  and  the  glory  of  God.  Nay,  the  more  the 
high  and  holy  sentiments  and  aspirations  of  such  a 
sagacious  and  lofty  spirit  were  turned  to  practical  a'f- 


406  THE    RE-ADJUSTMENT    OF    FAITH. 

fairs,  and  made  to  flow  into  the  actual  channels  of  the 
world's  immediate  life,  the  more  truly  spiritual  and 
Christian  would  such  a  soul  be.  To  direct  the  thoughts 
and  efforts  of  the  soul  away  from  time,  as  though  this 
were  to  raise  them  to  immortality  ;  to  close  the  eyes  to 
the  visible,  as  if  this  were  any  help  in  seeing  the  in 
visible  ;  or  to  disparage  the  earth,  as  if  that  were  ex 
alting  the  sky,  is  a  childish  and  superficial  way  of  cul 
tivating  a  religious  and  Christian  character,  which  the 
true  children  of  light  must  be  very  blind  not  to  see 
through. 

I  do  not  suppose  that  you,  my  brethren,  are  in  any 
particular  danger  of  overlooking  or  neglecting  prudence, 
calculation,  and  worldly  wisdom,  in  the  general  conduct 
of  life  ;  or  that  you  are  so  likely  to  sacrifice  these  in  the 
pursuit  of  religion,  on  enthusiastic  and  mystical  princi 
ples,  as  to  make  it  incumbent  on  me  to  warn  you  seri 
ously  against  the  danger.  It  is  not  for  that  purpose 
that  I  am  engaged  in  discussing  the  question  before  us. 
But  for  this,  namely,  that  the  idea  still  maintained  by 
popular  and  prevailing  superstition,  that  the  true  re 
ligious  character  is  one  opposed  to  the  exercise  of  sound 
discretion  and  worldly  wisdom,  does  a  ^reat  deal  to  ex 
cuse  men  from  the  duties  of  religion,  a  great  deal  to 
bring  religion  into  practical  contempt,  a  great  deal  to 
make  the  opinions  of  religious  men  disregarded  and 
despised.  For  just  consider  what  an  imputation  on 
divine  and  spiritual  influence  it  is,  to  say  that  it  drives 
men  out  of  their  practical  senses  ;  unsettles  their  judg 
ment  ;  makes  them  less  valuable  as  members  of  exist 
ing  society ;  less  reliable  co-operators  in  the  actual 
business  of  life  ;  poor  advisers  in  the  great  concerns  of 


WORLDLY    WISDOM.  407 

statesmanship,  commerce,  education,  political  economy, 
and  the  conduct  of  nations  and  cities  !  It  would,  ac 
cording  to  this  notion,  he  most  unsafe  for  society  to 
have  all  its  members  come  under  the  influence  of  re 
ligion  !  There  could,  then,  be  no  enterprising  trade, 
no  efficient  government,  no  accumulation  of  wealth,  no 
diligent  and  sagacious  men  of  business,  no  thrift,  fore 
cast,  nor  calculation.  Such  an  amount  of  faith  in  God 
would  be  dangerous  to  civilization.  Men  would  not 
sow  the  harvest  if,  in  general,  they  took  so  little  thought 
for  the  morrow,  nor  weave  clothing  enough  to  cover  the 
nakedness  of  the  world,  if  they  commonly  accepted  the 
doctrine  which  makes  the  care  of  Providence  the  best 
of  raiment.  Nine-tenths  of  the  world  must  be  irre 
ligious  to  make  it  possible  for  the  other  tenth  to  be  so 
pious  as  this  !  So  long  as  the  worldly  and  wicked  will 
maintain  and  support  society  by  their  shameful  indus 
try,  their  sad  anxiety  to  grow  corn  and  wine,  to  spin 
and  weave,  that  they  may  sell  and  hoard  ;  to  lay  up, 
in  an  impious  distrust  of  Providence,  against  failures  of 
the.  crop,  or  sickness,  misfortune,  and  old  age,  the 
means  of  their  own  and  other  people's  subsistence,  it  is 
safe  for  a  few  to  devote  themselves  entirely  to  lives  of 
faith  and  prayer  and  aspiration,  to  unworldly  theories, 
and  to  a  lofty  contempt  of  prudence  and  the  vulgar 
excellencies  of  terrestrial  prosperity  !  But  the  possi 
bility  of  such  a  self-forgetting  and  unworldly  class  is 
entirely  dependent  upon  the  continued  existence  of  a 
much  larger  class  who  continually  remember  themselves 
and  their  enthusiastic,  self-oblivious,  and  sacredly  rash 
brethren  besides  !  Thus  the  unworldly  may  thank  the 
worldly  for  their  title  to  live  in  this  planet  at  all.  The 


408  THE    RE-ADJUSTMENT    OF    FAITH. 

pious,  after  this  fashion,  may  thank  the  impious  for  the 
opportunity  of  displaying  their  graces  ! 

I  am  very  well  aware,  my  brethren,  that  many  no 
ble,  aspiring,  and  truly  Christian  souls,  are  actually  de 
ficient  in  sound  judgment  and  worldly  wisdom,  and  that 
their  disinterested  piety  and  sweet  and  holy  graces  are 
a  greater  benefaction  to  the  world  than  even  their  pru 
dence  and  discretion  could  be.  I  know  that  modera 
tion,  sobriety  of  judgment,  worldly  wisdom,  are  far  more 
common  than  a  childlike  trust,  a  holy  aspiration,  a  self- 
forgetting  moral  enthusiasm.  Admit  this,  I  beseech 
you,  in  the  fullest  and  frankest  way.  But  do  not  go  on 
to  think  and  say  that  it  is  the  elevation,  purity,  and 
disinterestedness  of  religion,  that  disturbs  the  practical 
judgment  of  men,  or  that  religious  men  and  women  are 
the  better  for  these  serious  defects  of  character,  or  that 
the  union  of  sound  sense,  sober  judgment,  balanced 
opinions,  with  moral  aspiration,  spiritual  insight,  and 
self-consecration,  is  an  impossible,  an  unnatural,  or  an 
unholy  alliance  !  It  is  not  the  love  of  God  that  makes 
men  fanatical  and  indiscreet,  nor  the  love  of  truth,  ho 
liness,  and  heaven,  that  drives  men  into  extremes  of 
imprudence,  and  folly  !  It  is  not  the  love  of  Christ  that 
unsettles  the  reason,  confuses  the  feelings,  and  unbal 
ances  the  faculties  !  Men,  indeed,  have  truly  loved 
God  and  Christ,  and  yet  had  fanatical  and  unsettled 
minds  ;  but  their  fanaticism  and  unsettledness  came 
not  from  their  light,  but  their  darkness  ;  not  from  what 
was  true,  but  from  what  was  false  in  their  views  ;  not 
from  the  pure  and  heavenly,  but  the  corrupt  and  earthly 
portion  of  their  faith.  It  was  not  their  religion,  but 
their  irreligion  that  left  them  in  a  marked  imperfection 


WORLDLY    WISDOM.  409 

of  manhood.  Do  you  suppose  it  is  the  love  of  human 
ity  that  makes  the  ultra-abolitionist  of  our  day  such  a 
wild  and  visionary  personage,  such  a  general  and  reck 
less  scold  ?  Not  at  all  !  I  do  not,  on  account  of  his 
faults,  deny  his  love  of  humanity,  for  I  see  it  in  the  many 
noble  sacrifices  of  worldly  advancement,  and  of  pub 
lic  reputation  he  is  willing  to  make  ;  but  his  bitterness 
and  his  scorn  and  his  uncandor  and  unreason,  I  ascribe 
wholly  to  his  weaknesses,  his  partisan  temper,  his  ne 
cessity  or  passion  for  creating  a  sensation,  his  wilful 
intemperance  of  character.  Is  it,  moreover,  his  self- 
sacrificing  devotion  to  his  race,  his  burning  love  of  the 
black  man,  that  sober  society  disrelishes  and  frowns 
upon  ?  or  is  it  rather  his  destructive  treason  to  the  con 
stitution,  his  mischievous  assaults  on  the  religious  and 
social  institutions  which,  we  all  so  well  know,  underlie 
the  real  and  permanent  interests  of  the  country  ?  And 
suppose,  for  a  moment,  we  should  all  become  like  him 
— should  all  cry,  "Down  with  the  Union!"  "Away 
with  the  Church  !  "—how  long  would  he  himself  be  safe 
from  the  bloody  violence  and  the  malignant  passions 
his  own  intemperate  views  and  reckless  speech  excite  ? 
It  is  under  the  shelter  of  the  law  that  he  is  able  to  de 
nounce  whatever  laws  he  dislikes  ;  under  the  protection 
of  the  Union,  that  he  can  safely  assail  the  Union  as  the 
compact  of  hell ;  and  under  the  reign  of  the  very  order 
and  peace  which  he  pronounces  infidel  and  inhuman, 
that  he  is  able  alone  to  find  a  platform  from  which  to 
vomit  his  scorn  of  the  whole  Christian  world  and  its 
united  governments  and  people.  And  precisely  so  it  is 
with  the  Church,  when  she  thoughtlessly  disparages 
prudence  and  thrift,  and  what  she  is  pleased  to  call 
18 


410  THE    RE- ADJUSTMENT    OF    FAITH 

worldliness,  in  an  indiscriminate  manner  !  She  owes 
her  own  temporal  support,  her  edifices  of  worship,  the 
education  and  the  leisure  of  her  teachers,  their  support 
and  their  means  of  charity,  to  the  very  pursuits,  the 
very  calculation  and  foresight,  the  accumulations  and 
the  occupations,  she  disparages.  Of  course,  it  is  not  the 
Christian  piety,  the  true  spirituality  of  the  Gospel,  that 
moves  this  cheap  kind  of  denunciation  ;  this  unmeaning 
and  insincere,  or  else  empty  and  indiscriminating,  cen 
sure.  It  is  the  sloth  which  will  not  take  pains  to  clear 
up  its  own  views;  the  professionally  which  wiU  not 
risk,  for  truth's  sake,  its  own  reputation  for  sanctity  ; 
the  rhetoric  which  cannot  afford  to  sacrifice  so  easy  a 
style  of  sonorous  commonplace,  that  begets  that  pseudo 
and  inexpensive  sort  of  heavenly-rnindedness  which  con 
sists  in  calling  the  necessary,  and  useful,  and  beneficent 
pursuits  of  society,  by  hard  names.  To  show  enter 
prising  and  zealous  men  of  business  the  guards  and 
cautions  they  need  to  carry  into  their  affairs — to  per 
suade  them  to  see  and  find  a  noble  school  of  honor  and 
integrity  in  their  commercial  pursuits,  and  to  regard 
themselves  in  their  success  only  as  treasurers  of  the  in 
terests  of  society  and  almoners  of  the  Lord — this  is  too 
thoughtful  and  difficult  a  work  for  those  who  trade  in 
religion  and  make  a  business  of  creating  strong  sensa 
tions.  But  this  is  precisely  what  religion  itself,  or  the 
Gospel  of  Christ,  undertakes.  She  does  not  for  a  mo 
ment  allow  that  any  of  the  genuine  interests,  or  natural 
occupations,  or  civilizing  pursuits  of  men,  are  under  the 
ban  of  piety.  On  the  contrary,  she  takes  them  all  into 
Christ's  kingdom.  She  wants  the  industry,  the  sagaci 
ty,  the  enterprise,  the  wealth,  the  intelligence,  the  cul- 


WORLDLY    WISDOM.  411 

ture,  the  happiness  of  the  world  within  the  Church. 
But  it  is  her  duty  and  sacred  office  to  separate  the  chaff 
from  the  wheat,  not  to  burn  the  wheat  to  get  rid  of 
the  chaff  ;  to  purge  the  motives,  not  to  change  the 
callings  ;  to  elevate  the  views,  not  to  disorganize  the 
relations  of  men  ;  to  regulate  their  appetites  and  pas 
sions,  not  to  eradicate  or  destroy  them  ;  to  bring  mod 
eration,  symmetry,  and  a  true  order  into  the  minds  of 
all  men,  not  to  expurgate  any  of  their  qualities,  or  pro 
nounce  any  part  of  their  nature,  or  of  the  world  they 
occupy,  or  the  society  they  constitute,  profane  and 
diabolic. 

There  is  such  a  thing  as  worldliness,  certainly,  and 
there  are  thousands  and  tens  of  thousands  of  worldly 
people  ;  but  their  worldliness  does  not  consist  in  their 
industry,  their  thrift,  their  sobriety  of  judgment,  al 
though  these  are  all  used  to  gratify  their  selfish  egotism 
and  greed.  Worldliness  is  the  love  of  self,  as  opposed 
to  the  love  of  God  and  man  ;  and  as  this  world  had 
possessed  this  for  its  prevailing  spirit  for  ages,  when 
Christ  came,  it  was  a  characteristic  description  of  self 
ishness  to  call  it  worldliness.  So  far  as  men  are  now 
selfish,  greedy,  unsympathetic,  hoarding,  thoughtless  of 
the  claims  of  their  fellows,  and  unmindful  of  God,  duty, 
and  immortality,  they  are  worldlings.  But  their  world 
liness  does  not  dwell  in  their  interest  in  business,  or 
politics,  or  pleasure,  or  society,  but  in  the  nature  of 
this  interest.  This  interest  may  be,  and  is  in  many, 
pure,  peaceable,  and  full  of  good  fruits,  favorable  to  the 
finest  and  soundest  character  ;  but  it  is  in  still  more, 
impure,  contentious,  unprincipled,  selfish,  and  vile. 
Some  men  grow,  on  their  business  pursuits,  their  social 


412  THE    RE- ADJUSTMENT    OF    FAITH. 

relations,  their  political,  literary,  and  professional  avo 
cations,  more  and  more  honorable,  benevolent,  disin 
terested,  and  aspiring  ;  acquire  a  truer  brotherhood  with 
men,  a  closer  fellowship  with  Christ  and  with  God- 
Other  men  dwindle,  on  the  same  pursuits,  into  self- 
seekers,  rivals,  and  antagonists  of  their  race,  doubters 
of  religion  and  defiers  of  God.  It  is  nob  their  pursuit, 
it  is  not  the  world,  considered  either  as  a  place  or  a 
providential  scene  of  mixed  occupation,  that  makes  or 
unmakes  men  ;  it  is  men  that  use  or  abuse,  that  con 
vert  to  food  or  to  poison,  the  opportunities  and  means 
which  a  gracious  Providence  leaves  to  their  choice. 
The  world  is  good  enough  ;  it  is  we  who  are  wilful  and 
mad,  that  make  it  corrupting  to  ourselves  and  others, 
and  then  call  the  evil  we  have  infused  into  our  circum 
stances,  an  evil  inherent  in  the  things  themselves. 

Let  me  guard  you  against  one  fatal  misuse  of  the 
truth  I  have  brought  before  you.  I  have  endeavored 
to  show  the  necessity  and  the  feasibility  of  bringing  all 
the  prudential  and  practical  wisdom  and  enterprise,  af 
forded  by  the  opportunities,  the  discipline,  and  the  oc 
cupations  of  life,  into  the  formation  of  the  religious 
character  and  the  perfecting  of  the  Christian  life. 
What  an  abuse  of  this  important  truth  would  be  made, 
if  those  who  are  only  prudent,  industrious,  and  zealous 
in  their  worldly  pursuits,  should  thence  immediately  de 
clare,  or  think  themselves  to  be  religious  !  If,  because 
the  wisdom  of  the  world  may  be  ministerial  to  tho  wis 
dom  from  above,  It  should  be  made,  a  substitute  for  it, 
or  be  confounded  with  it  !  And  yet  this  is  the  error 
constantly  endorsed  or  experienced  by  those  who  are 
forever  crying  up  decency  of  life,  as  if  it  were  the  sub- 


WORLDLY    WISDOM.  413 

stance  of  piety.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  because  in 
dustry,  prudence,  worldly  wisdom  are  not  the  love  of 
God  and  man,  are  they  opposed  to  the  love  of  God  and 
man  ?  are  they  nothing,  because  they  are  not  every 
thing  ?  are  they  not  useful  means  because  they  are  not 
good  ends  ?  It  is  this  false  depreciation  of  them,  on 
the  side  of  the  Church,  which  leads  to  as  false  an  ex 
aggeration  of  their  worth  on  the  side  of  the  world. 
But  let  us  not  be  tossed  to  and  fro,  from  one  extrava 
gance  of  opinion  to  another.  The  human  race  ought 
not  to  be  divided  between  fanatics  of  religion  and 
fanatics  of  worldly  success.  Fanaticism  of  any  kind  is 
weakness  and  folly ;  and  there  is  no  proper  excuse  for 
those  who  will  not  be  at  pains  to  keep  a  balance  of 
judgment,  and  a  proper  medium  between  the  relative 
claims  of  the  present  and  the  future. 

We  are  living  at  a  time  when  sober  men  have  got 
tired  of  half-truths,  and  are  not  quite  patient  of  the 
labor  of  getting  at  whole  ones,  and  so  maintain  a  sort 
of  suspended  animation  of  the  higher  life.  Keligious 
discussions  and  philanthropic  debates  are  carried  on  to 
the  very  small  satisfaction  of  men  of  sense,  really  anx 
ious  for  the  truth,  because  the  mouths  of  the  earnest 
men  are  too  small  to  hold  any  thing  but  partisan  and 
ultra  opinions,  fighting  superstition  with  skepticism, 
and  not  with  truth,  and  attacking  one  kind  of  injustice 
with  another  kind  of  injustice,  instead  of  arraigning  it 
at  the  bar  of  eternal  equity.  The  errors  of  orthodoxy, 
forsooth,  are  to  be  met  only  with  the  errors  of  hetero 
doxy  ;  the  follies  of  formality  with  the  follies  of  in 
formality  ;  the  excesses  of  worldliness  with  the  excesses 
of  unworldliness.  If  there  be"  a  false  spirituality  in 


414  THE      RE-ADJUSTMENT    OF    FAITH. 

vogue,  all  spirituality  is  to  be  decried  ;  if  prayer  in 
the   corners   of  the  streets  is  to  be  discouraged,  prayer 
in  the  closet  is  given  up  ;  and  if  we  are  not  to  believe 
in  the  dogmas  of  local  councils,  we  are  not  to  believe 
in  the  doctrines  of  Christ  and  his  apostles.     Because 
our  religion  is  a  spirit  and  a  temper,  it  is  therefore  to . 
have  no  definite  opinions,  no  regular  methods,  no  help 
ful   symbols   connected    with  it ;  as   if  the   question, 
"  what  is  Christianity"  were  not  very  different  from  the 
question,  "  what  is  truth  ?  "     It  is  as  much  a  different 
question,  as  what  is  heaven,  and  what  is  the  road  to 
heaven,  or  what-  is  Boston,  and   what  is ,  the   road   to 
Boston.     Religion   may  be  a  very  indefinable  thing ; 
but  a  religion  may  be  a  very  definite  thing.     The  spirit 
of  the  Gospel  may  be  hard  to  confine  in  articles  of  be 
lief ;  but  the  truths,  or  facts,  or  methods  by  winch  that 
spirit  is  to  be  attained  may  be  as  capable  of  statement, 
as  the  chemical  methods  of  creating  a  subtile  essence, 
or  distilling  an  evanescent  gas.    We  know  as  little  about 
the  secret  of  a  blade  of  grass,  as  we  do  about  the  secret 
of  God's  being,  for  mystery  and  infinity  are  at  the  bot 
tom  of  every  thing,  whether  it   be  a  grain  of  sand,  a 
world  of  light,  or  an  intelligence  like  God's  own.     But 
how  to  raise  grass  requires  some  definiteness  of  belief  in 
the  season  of  planting,  the  methods  of  sowing  and  of 
culture,  and  the  enriching  of  soils  ;  and  so,  how  to  se 
cure  the  Christian  spirit,  how  to  acquire  the  religious 
character,   requires    some    definiteness    of  belief,  some 
opinions,  some  methods  of  self-discipline,  some  training 
of  intellect,  conscience  and  heart  ;  and  it  is  the  con 
founding  of  things  that  differ,  the  lack  of  patient  and 
candid  discrimination,  that  is  doing  so  much  mischief 


WORLDLY    WISDOM.  415 

now-a-days,  when  truly  religious  men,  in  their  zeal  for 
a  neglected  side  of  the  truth,  talk  in  a  way  that  sounds 
like  infidelity,  and  which  is  welcomed  by  infidels  with 
approbation. 

Although  church-going  is  not  religion,  it  nevertheless 
remains  church-going  ;  and  church-going  ministers  to 
religion.  Although  theology  is  not  religion,  it  still  re 
mains  theology,  or  the  theory  of  religion  and  of  the  ap 
plication  of  religion,  and  surely,  as  such,  it  is  immensely 
important  to  religion.  Because  Christianity  is  not  ab 
solute  religion,  is  not  religion  itself — nor  belief  in  Chris 
tianity,  practical  piety — it  does  not  change  the  fact, 
that  Christianity  is  a  system  of  revealed  truth,  by  the 
study,  the  belief  and  the  application  of  which,  practical 
piety 'and  sound  morality,  and  all  personal  and  social 
interests,  are  promoted  as  by  nothing  else  !  Why, 
then,  this  foolish  confusion  of  thought,  this  indiscrim 
inate  mode  of  speech,  by  which  means  are  disparaged 
because  they  are  not  ends,  and  methods  and  forms  and 
symbols  and  statements  of  faith  are  sneered  at  and 
waived  aside,  because  they  are  only  educational  and 
preparatory,  or  temporary  and  ministerial,  and  not  ab 
solute  ?  Or  what  proper  controversy  is  there  between 
}  rineiples  and  methods  ;  lofty  aims  and  humble  means, 
a  spirit  too  great  for  statement,  and  directions  for  the 
promotion  of  that  spirit,  most  explicit  and  'simple ;  a 
faith  in  the  absolute  and  ever-unattainable  truth  ;  and 
a  faith  also  in  truths  touching  Christ  and  Christian 
growth  and  culture,  that  are  not  absolute  but  relative, 
and  therefore  precisely  statable. 

If  we  applied  to  religion  and  the  religious  life  and 
character,  the  pains-taking  thought,  the  prudent  enter- 


416  THE    RE-ADJUSTMENT    OF    FAITH. 

prise  and  sober  weighing  of  things,  which  sagacious 
men  of  the  world  apply  to  their  trade,  their  ship-build 
ing,  their  railroad  making  ;  if  we  made  the  accurate 
distinctions  they  make  in  respect  of  what  they  give  for 
their  goods  and  what  they  take  for  them,  who  they 
trust  and  who  they  do  not,  what  they  believe  and  what 
they  doubt  ;  if  we  exercised  their  patience,  address,  de 
votion,  wisdom,  in  our  religious  concerns  ;  we  should 
find  a  wonderful  dissipation  of  the  clouds  that  now  hang 
over  this  great  subject ;  we  should  get  beyond  the  reach 
of  the  vague  thoughts  which  leave  us  at  the  mercy  of 
eloquent  but  incautious  lips,  that  unsettle  our  convic 
tions  and  destroy  our  hopes.  We  should  be  driven  to 
neither  extreme — whether  of  worldliness  or  unworldli- 
ness — but  maintain  the  rights  of  humanity  in  the  pres 
ence  of  the  Church,  and  the  rights  of  the  Church  in  the 
presence  of  humanity  ;  reconcile  reason  and  faith  ;  inte 
rest  in  life  and  self-consecration  ;  freedom  and  law  ; 
emancipation  from  the  letter,  with  reverence  for  the 
Scriptures  ;  spirituality,  and  the  use  of  rites  and  sym 
bols  ;  progress  with  fixed  foundations  ;  and  the  use  and 
improvement  and  enjoyment  of  the  whole  of  this  world, 
with  the  love  of  Christ  and  man  and  God,  and  the  best 
and  noblest  preparation  for  the  world  of  spirits. 

MAY  14,  1859. 


SERMON  XXV. 

COMPARISON  OF  THE   CLAIMS   OF   ENLIGHTENED   SELFISHNESS 
AND   UNCALOULATING  LOVE. 

"  For  what  if  some  did  not  believe  ?     Shall  their  unbelief  make  the  faith  of 
God  without  effect?     God  forbid." — ROMANS  iii.  3. 

THERE  is  a  serious  doubt  in  the  minds  of  many  in 
telligent  and  well-disposed  people  in  our  day,  whether 
religion,  considered  as  distinct  from  morality — that  is 
to  say,  decency  of  conduct  and  worthiness  of  life — has 
any  existence,  except  in  the  imaginations  of  well-mean 
ing  but  deluded  persons.  By  religion,  as  thus  doubted, 
is  meant,  I  .suppose,  what  is  ordinarily  understood  by 
that  word  ;  namely,  a  relationship  between  man  and  God, 
kept  up  by  conscious  obedience,  prayer,  and  aspiration  ; 
and  for  Christians,  an  interior  intercourse  of  the  soul  with 
its  Sovereign  and  Father,  by  means  appointed  in  the 
Gospel  of  our  Saviour.  And  this  familiar  and  popular 
definition  of  religion  is,  I  suppose,  the  correct  one. 
Eeligion  is  universally  understood  among  plain  people, 
and  by  ordinary,  average  minds,  to  be  something  differ 
ent  from  morality.  Morality  is  well  described  as  that 
kind  of  just,  honest,  and  correct  behaviour,  which  it 
would  become  men  to  practice,  if  their  lives  began  and 
18* 


418  THE    RE-ADJUSTMENT    OF    FAITH. 

ended  with  the  world  they  now  inhabit ;  if  they  had  nc 
obligations  outside  of  it,  and  no  knowledge  beyond  it, 
and  no  connection  with  any  powers  or  authorities  except 
the  visible  ones  of  this  terrestrial  globe.  It  is  perfectly 
clear,  that  were  there  no  God,  no  Saviour,  no  immor 
tality,  and,  of  course,  no  judgment  to  come,  it  would 
still  be  necessary  to  have  rules  of  good  conduct,  and 
means  of  promoting  considerate  and  righteous  manners 
among  men,  in  behalf  of  the  general  good  and  for  the 
sake  of  individual  happiness.  Furthermore,  there  can 
be  no  doubt  that  a  virtuous  and  noble  life,  seeking 
truth,  rectitude,  and  the  common  welfare,  would  be  the 
dictate,  whether  obeyed  or  not,  of  the  most  enlightened 
selfishness,  were  there  no  supernatural  authority  to  en 
force  it,  no  Bible  to  recommend  it,  no  Saviour  to  illus 
trate  it,  no  immortality  to  reward  it.  Accordingly,  a 
small  body  of  highly  intelligent  people  exists  in  Eng 
land,  distinguished,  also,  for  correctness  and  elevation  of 
life,  whose  adherents  call  themselves  Secularists,  to 
mark  their  distinctive  opinions — that  is  to  say,  people 
of  this  world  in  opposition  to  people  seeking  another ; 
not  worldly  people,  in  the  sense  in  which  that  phrase  is 
used  by  religious  persons,  but  those  who  think  that  mo 
tives  enough  for  virtue  and  philanthropy,  and  whatever 
else  goes  to  make  good  people,  are  to  be  fo'und  in  the 
contemplation  of  actual  affairs  in  the  present  plane  of 
every  day  life,  and  in  the  recognition  of  themselves  as 
beings  destined  only  to  an  earthly  existence.  They, 
therefore,  systematically  ignore  and  abandon  all  hopes 
and  all  thoughts  of  a  future  existence  ;  all  obligations 
to  any  unseen  or  supernal  authorities — in  short,  all  re 
ligion  ;  and  devote  themselves  to  morality,  to  good  citi- 


SELFISHNESS    AND    LOVE.  419 

zenship,  the  elevation  of  the  poor,  the  advancement  of 
pure  manners,  equal  laws,  and  practical  happiness.  It 
is  their  conviction  that  hopes  of  heaven  and  fears  of 
hell  are  alike  selfish  and  ignoble  ;  that  interest  in  a  fu 
ture  life  diminishes  fidelity  to  present  obligations,  and 
subtracts  from  the  improvement  of  earthly  affairs  the 
energy  and  zeal  which  they  so  pressingly  require.  They 
think  that  even  if  there  be  a  personal  God,  He  cannot 
want  their  service  as  much  as  their  fellow-men  do  ;  and 
if  there  be  a  future  world,  it  will  be  time  enough  to 
attend  to  its  duties  and  enjoy  its  pleasures  when  we 
reach  it.  Meanwhile,  both  being  uncertain,  it  is  not 
prudent  to  waste  thought  and  feeling  upon  them. 
These  people — Secularists  as  they  style  themselves,  in 
contradistinction  to  Sacredists,  if  the  word  may  be  par- 
cloned — are,  I  repeat,  among  the  most  truthful,  genu 
ine,  and  excellent  people  in  England  ;  distinguished  for 
intelligence,  beneficence,  and  thorough  kindness  of  heart 
and  life.  I  suppose  they  merely  carry  out,  and  boldly 
embody  in  a  system,  ideas  and  feelings  that  are  widely 
prevalent  in  a  less  conscious  and  unsystematic  form, 
here  and  there — opinions  with  which  some  of  you,  for 
instance,  may  more  or  less  heartily  sympathize. 

And  you  may  well  ask,  in  view  of  this  statement,  if 
there  can  be  thorough  goodness  and  real  unselfish  con 
duct  in  this  world — intelligent,  useful,  pure,  and  cor 
rect  living — inward  elevation  of  mind,  heart,  and  con 
science,  devoted  usefulness — without  faith  in  a  personal 
God,  belief  in  a  revealed  religion,  docility  to  a  divine 
Saviour,  hope  of  a  future  life — does  it  not  prove  religion 
to  be  somewhat  of  a  superstition  ?  to  be,  at  any  rate. 
an  exaggerated  influence — or  to  say  the  least,  not  the 


420  THE    RE-ADJUSTMENT    OF    FAITH. 

essential  and  indispensable  thing  the  pulpit  so  uniformly 
pronounces  it  ?  Is  it  not  at  best  a  means  to  an  end 
which  it  is  now  proved  can  be  attained  without  it  ? 
Moreover,  as  the  end  which  religion  professes. to  aim  at, 
and  to  furnish  means  for  reaching — that  is,  -a  good  and 
righteous  life  on  earth,  as  preparatory  to  a  blessed  and 
eternal  life  in  heaven — is  by  no  means  the  universal,  or 
even  ordinary  result,  in  those  who  come  under  its  teach 
ings,  and  who  profess  to  respect  and  reverence  its  doc 
trines  and  spirit — is  it  not  worth  while  to  consider 
whether  the  attention  up  to  this  time  given  to  faith  had 
not  better,  in  future,  be  given  to  practice  ;  the  time 
spent  in  worship  be  devoted  to  philanthropy,  and  the 
thoughts  and  energies  expended  in  gaining  heaven  be 
used  in  improving  earth  ?  If  there  be  a  just,  and  wise, 
and  holy  God,  surely  he  cannot  fail  to  approve  faithful 
services  to  his  needy  children,  more  even  than  devotion 
to  himself,  who  needeth  nothing  ;  and  if  there  be  a  fu 
ture  life,  who  so  well  prepared  to  enjoy  its  privileges 
and  fulfil  its  duties  as  those  who  have  most  faithfully 
used  the  opportunities  and  discharged  the  obligations  of 
this  present  life  ? 

There  is  something  in  this  style  of  reasoning  which 
seems  to  me  not  easily  answered  by  minds  of  only  ordi 
nary  reflection  ;  something  taking  and  conclusive  to 
persons  of  quick  and  off-hand  judgment.  And  yet  it  is 
truly  fallacious,  though  widely  and  secretly  convincing 
to  thousands  of  frank  and  generous  hearts,  all  over  the 
world  !  I  shall  endeavor  to  point  out  the  flaws,  in  the 
fair  presentation  I  have  sought  to  give,  of  the  argument 
for  dispensing  with  religion.  "  For  what  if  some  did 


SELFISHNESS   AND    LOVE.  421 

not  believe  ?  Shall  their  unbelief  make  the  faith  of 
God  without  effect  ?  God  forbid." 

I  begin  with  restating  what  it  is,  under  the  name 
of  religion,,  which,  in  opposition  to  the  Secularists  and 
their  unconscious  disciples  everywhere,  I  am  about  to 
show  cannot  safely  or  wisely  be  dispensed  with. 

And  I  repeat,  that  by  religion  I  do  not  mean  a  re 
fined  and  subtle  something  carefully  adapted  to  the 
present  sensitive  state  of  the  public  faith — in  which  di 
vine  persons,  and  divine  hopes  and  fears,  and  divine 
commands  and  sanctions,  are  so  exquisitely  veiled  and 
so  adroitly  manipulated,  that  it  is  difficult  to  say  whether 
they  are  or  are  not  believed  in,  or  whether  they  belong 
to  heaven  or  earth,  or  dwell  in  the  region  of  the  natural 
or  the  region  of  the  supernatural.  I  hold  a  religion 
which  is  only  a  thinly  veneered  morality,  a  faith  which 
is  unbelief  varnished  with  believing  words,  to  be  not 
half  so  safe  for  its  disciple  as  an  honest  denial  of  relig 
ion.  I  suppose  that  a  religion  of  this  sort — as  a  sev 
enth  day  interlude,  a  change  in  excitements,  an  aesthet 
ic  or  intellectual  luxury — might  find  supporters,  if  not 
disciples,  among  utter  skeptics.  Indeed,  it  is  stated 
that  a  Free-thinking  club,  composed  in  part  of  avowed 
Atheists,  has  looked  with  favor  on  a  religious  society 
which  has  reduced  a  positive  faith  to  the  vanishing 
point,  without  abandoning  its  assembling  together  for 
purposes  of  spiritual  improvement.  No  !  it  were  easy 
to  find  patronage  for  this  sort  of  religion  among  Secu 
larists  themselves.  But  the  religion  I  contend  for  is 
the  ordinary  kind,  which  simple,  unmetaphysical,  sober 
folks — so  superstitiously,  in  the  estimation  of  the  Secu 
larists — still  accept  and  believe  in  ;  the  religion  of 


422  THE    RE-ADJUSTMENT    OF    FAITH. 

Catholics  and  Protestants,  Methodists  and  Baptists,  of 
orthodox  and  heterodox  Christians  ;  that  religion  which 
commands  the  fear  and  worship  of  God,  the  disciple- 
ship  and  imitation  of  Jesus  Christ,  the  necessity  of  re 
pentance  and  forgiveness  of  sins  ;  which  makes  the  soul 
a  dependent  on  God's  pardon,  arouses  and  pains  the 
conscience  before  it  quiets  it  to  rest,  excites  the  spiritual 
affections  and  fixes  them  on  God  in  Christ,  creates  a 
trembling  hope  of  salvation,  and  makes  the  longing  and 
desire  for  immortality  and  heaven,  the  perpetual  and 
patient  struggle  of  our  mortal  pilgrimage. 

Nay,  further  than  this,  the  religion  I  contend  for  is 
that  familiar,  prevailing  religion,  which  many  of  the 
foremost  thinkers  of  the  day — the  poets  and  political 
economists  and  moralists  and  philosophers — disuse  or 
despise — which  puts  into  catechisms  and  creeds  and 
forms  of  faith,  and  embodies  in  positive  rites  and  usages, 
and  fixes  down  to  holy  days  and  times  and  seasons,  its 
instructions  and  disciplinary  methods  ;  and  sustains  a 
class  of  religious  teachers,  and  builds  churches,  and  has 
prejudices  about  their  use,  and  distinguishes  between 
things  secular  and  things  sacred,  and  values  doctrines 
and  rites,  simply  because  they  are  connected  with  a 
hope  of  salvation.  If  this  popular,  ordinary  kind  of  re 
ligion  cannot  be  defended,  it  is  not  worth  while  to  con 
tend  for  any  other.  If  the  world  can  dispense  with 
what  commonly  passes  for  religion,  it  can  dispense  with 
any  superfine  edition  of  it,  which,  at  the  best,  must  be 
confined  to  a  very  few  hands. 

What,  then,  is  the  grand  reason  for  believing  and 
maintaining  and  using  religion  as  thus  defined — what 


SELFISHNESS   AND    LOYE.  423 

the   necessity  and  the   occasion  for  it  ?     I  answer,  in 
the  first  place — directly  and  unequivocally — its  truth. 

If  there  were  no  personal  God  and  no  immortal  life, 
and  no  moral  issues  of  life  and  death,  arid  no  actual 
Saviour — if  God  had  not  made  man  as  he  is,  for  pur 
poses  which  he  has  revealed,  and  had  not  chosen  to 
bring  him  into  such  personal  relations  with  himself  as 
are  implied  in  the  very  words  Religion  and  Christi 
anity — then,  I  might  confess,  that  men  were  presumptu 
ous  in  supposing  God  cared  very  much  for  them,  or  that 
He  could  concern  himself  directly  with  their  present  or 
their  future.  Then,  the  hope  of  immortality  might  be 
esteemed  a  rash  and  delirious  longing  ;  then,  the  con 
nection  between  this  world  and  another,  a  vague  and 
improbable  invention  of  human  vanity  ;  then,  the  pos 
sibility  of  actual  intercourse  with  God  by  prayer  and 
communion,  a  questionable  or  unreal  pretension  ;  then, 
religion  itself  an  uncertain  speculation,  not  to  say  a  dan 
gerous  delusion.  But,  allowing  for  a  moment,  that  it  is 
true  that  God  lives,  and  actually  asks  and  demands  our 
obedience  and  homage  ;  that  he  offers  the  gift  of  eternal 
life  upon  certain  moral  and  spiritual  conditions  ;  that 
he  has  sent  his  Son  into  the  world  on  a  mission  of  mer 
cy  and  salvation  ; — allowing,  for  a  moment,  that  it  is  a 
fact  that  God  really  hates  our  sins,  and  is  concerned 
for  our  escape  from  their  power,  and  that  having  perfect 
wisdom  and  love,  he  has  devised  and  laid  down  his  own 
methods  for  saving  the  world  from  folly  and  blindness, 
and  the  consequences  of  disobedience  ;  allowing,  in 
short,  that  Christianity  is  true — why,  surely,  any 
theories  based  upon  the  hypothesis  that  it  is  not  true, 
or  that  nobody  knows  whether  it  is  true  or  not,  are  lia- 


424  THE    RE-ADJUSTMENT    OF    FAITH. 

ble  to  most  serious  objections  !  I  confess  that  were  we 
without  any  revelation  of  God,  or  any  experience  of 
man's  spiritual  constitution  and  wants,  had  the  race  and 
the  world  experienced  a  different  history  from  its  actual 
one,  I  should  see  a  great  deal  of  reason  in  the  ideas  of 
the  Secularists  and  their  unnamed  sympathizers.  As  it 
is,  their  whole  plan  proceeds  upon  an  hypothesis  totally 
different  from  that  presented  in  the  real  case.  They 
say,  in  effect,  How  can  God,  an  infinite  Being,  he  in 
terested  in  our  mortal  worship  of  him  ?  How  can  he 
have  placed  us  in  this  world  for  any  purpose  but  to  im 
prove  it  ?  How  can  he  have  desired  to  interest  us  in 
another  life  before  we  have  exhausted  this  ?  Well,  I 
reply,  how  he  can  have  done  it,  I  am  not  wise  enough 
to  answer.  That  he  has  done  it,  is  the  point  nearest 
and  most  important  to  me  and  to  you.  It  is  amazing, 
all  but  incredible,  that  God,  who  made  the  countless 
worlds,  should  have  distinguished  this  by  his  peculiar 
favor  !  It  is  confounding  that  man,  beginning  a  help 
less,  unconscious  babe,  should  end  a  mighty,  immortal 
seraph  !  It  is  awing  and  overwhelming  to  think  that 
the  only  begotten  Son  of  God  should  have  been  clothed 
in  mortal  flesh,  should  have  toiled  and  sweated  beneath 
the  burdens  of  a  persecuted,  a  reviled  and  forsaken  life, 
and  died  upon  a  bloody  cross,  for  creatures  so  ungrate 
ful,  so  sinning  and  so  worthless  as  we  mostly  are,  or 
seem  !  It  is  passing  strange  that  God  should  task  the 
resources  of  an  infinite  nature,  and  blend  in  the  for 
tunes  of  his  own  throne,  to  save  a  race  of  creatures  that 
doubt  his  own  existence,  repudiate  his  Son,  and  are  dis 
posed  to  bury  themselves  beneath  the  oblivious  dust 
after  they  shall  have  finished  their  short  and  erring  ca- 


SELFISHNESS    AND    LOVE.  425 

reer  above  it  !  But,  if  God  really  does  live,  and  if  he 
does  thus  love,  and  if  he  has,  in  his  Son,  thus  revealed 
his  boundless  interest  and  concern  for  us  ;  if  religion  is 
true  and  Christianity  real ;  if  communion  with  the 
Father,  fellowship  with  the  Son,  inspiration  from  the 
Holy  Spirit,  be  possible  and  actual  things — are  we,  then, 
in  a  condition  to  make  light  of  faith,  to  question  piety, 
to  abandon  the  study  and  practice  of  our  purely  relig 
ious  duties,  or  to  relinquish  any  of  the  defences  and 
customs  which  bring  them  regularly,  persuasively,  pa 
tiently  and  persistently  before  the  minds  and  hearts  of 
our  children,  our  fellow- creatures  and  ourselves  ? 

I  do  not  here-  undertake  to  prove  that  religion  is 
true.  I  assume  that  it  is  true,  on  the  strength  of  gen 
eral  consent,  and  on  the  authority  of  the  vast  majority 
of  the  wise  and  learned  and  good  in  all  the  Christian 
ages.  If  it  is  true,  you  will  concede  the  adequacy  of 
the  basis  for  treating  it  as  true.  If  it  is  not  true,  really 
it  seems  to  matter  little  what  is,  or  what  is  not,  what 
we  do,  or  do  not  do.  But  let  not  a  temporary  and  ex 
ceptional  skepticism  disturb  our  confidence.  "For  what 
if  some  did  not  believe  ?  Shall  their  unbelief  make  the 
faith  of  God  without  effect  ?  God  forbid." 

But,  in  the  next  place,  religion,  considered  as  the 
name  for  man's  relations  to  God  and  the  future,  and 
the  doctrinal  discipline  and  worship  which  is  founded 
upon  them,  possesses  a  claim  on  our  utmost  respect,  not 
only  as  true  in  itself  and  connected  with  our  future  sal 
vation  ;  but  also  because  it  is  true  to  man's  immediate 
nature  and  present  wants,  both  as  an  individual  and  as 
a  social  being,  and  in  the  very  world  he  now  lives  in. 
Do  away  religion,  and  you  fling  man  back  upon  his 


426  THE    RE-ADJUSTMENT    OF    FAITH. 

meagre  understanding  and  feeble  reasoning  powers  for 
his  whole  guidance.  An  enlightened  selfishness,  the 
rarest  thing  in  the  world,  becomes  his  best  and  highest 
rule  of  life.  Considering  that  virtue  and  justice,  honor 
and  truth,  are  always  for  the  interest  of  each  and  of  all. 
perhaps  you  think  that  no  happier  reign  could  bo  inau 
gurated  than  that  of  a  thoroughly  intelligent  self-love  : 
that  the  whole  object  of  religion — which  is  a  complete 
human  development — would  be  fully  secured,  if  men 
only  saw  clearly  what  their  interest  required.  But  this 
proceeds  upon  a  fallacy  now  very  popular,  that  it  is  ig 
norance  alone  that  causes  wrong-doing — that  the  chief 
source  of  vice  and  crime,  fully  and  selfishness,  is  mental 
and  moral  blindness — that  sin  is  the  stumbling  and  wan 
dering  of  people  that  know  no  better — that  are  only  mis 
taken  in  what  they  want,  deluded  by  their  passions  and 
led  through  pure  but  profound  self-ignorance,  to  grasp 
their  ruin  in  their  bliss.  Show  them  how  much  pleas- 
anter  right  is  than  wrong,  innocence  than  guilt,  disin 
terestedness  than  cupidity,  goodness  than  money,  peace 
than  pleasure — and,  according  to  these  worthy  but  cred 
ulous  people,  the  drunkard  will  at"  once  become  sober, 
the  miser  a  beneficent  citizen,  the  angry  and  violent 
man  gentle  and  amiable,  the  sluggard  an  ant  in  indus 
try,  and  the  self-seeking  public-spirited  and  philanthro 
pic  !  An  enlightened  self-love,  it  is  assumed,  would  do 
away  with  selfishness,  which  is  the  root  of  all  bitterness 
and  strife  and  wrong  in  the  world.  Admitting  this  for 
a  moment,  a  proper  rejoinder  would  be,  that  religion 
leaves  all  the  motives  of  a  utilitarian  kind  wholly  unim 
paired  by  those  she  adds  to  them,  and,  by  showing  that 
our  salvation  in  the  future  depends  upon  our  dutiful  and 


SELFISHNESS    AND    LOVE.  427 

pious  behaviour  on  earth,  certainly  does  not  diminish 
the  inducements  to  virtue  and  honor,  which  spring  from 
the  fact  that  they  are  felicitating  and  useful  in  them 
selves.  "  Godliness,"  says  the  apostle,  "  is  profitable 
unto  all  things,  having  the  promise  of  the  life  that  now 
is,  and  of  that  which  is  to  come." 

But  this  is  not  the  fundamental  answer.  The  truth 
is,  that  ignorance  of  what  our  real  interest  requires,  or 
where  our  genuine  happiness  lies,  is  not  the  chief,  nor 
even  a  principal  cause,  of  our  disobedience  to  the  laws 
of  brotherly  love,  or  of  the  neglect  of  our  divine  obliga 
tions  ;  and  the  theory  that  makes  it  the  chief  obstacle 
to  goodness  is  one.  of  the  shallow  notions  of  our  age  that 
blindly  and  perversely  worships  intelligence,  instead  of 
studying  the  human  heart,  reverencing  conscience,  and 
fearing  and  loving  God.  Man,  after  all,  is  not  so  mean 
and  calculating  a  creature  as  these  proposed  elevators 
of  their  species  would  make  him  out.  He  is  far  more 
than  an  incarnated  balance-sheet,  or  organized  interest- 
table  ;  he  is  a  creature  of  powerful  passions,  enormous 
desires,  strong  affections,  and  independent  will,  who  is 
capable  of  acting  against  his  interest  with  a  noble 
contempt ;  who  is  very  seldom  at  any  time  ruled  ex 
clusively  or  chiefly  by  his  interest,  but  rather  by  his 
passions,  his  impulses,  his  affections,  and  his  will. 
Mainly  he  does  as  he  pleases,  and  he  pleases  to  count 
a  little  immediate  ecstasy  worth  years  of  promised 
peace  ;  a  little  imperious  self-will  worth  a  great  deal 
of  blessed  subordination  ;  a  little  pride,  or  passion,  or 
prejudice,  or  love,  or  spite,  more  than  all  the  reason^ 
and  duty,  and  utility  in  the  universe.  Men  know  that 


428  THE    RE-ADJUSTMENT    OF    FAITH. 

they  are  fools  to  be  aDgry,  and  suicides  to  yield  to 
their  sudden  appetites  and  violent  passions — know  that 
it  costs  them  long  repentance,  broken  friendships,  sting 
ing  regrets,  and  permanent  failure.  There  is  not  a 
young  man  of  dissolute  lusts  and  bad  habits  here  pres 
ent  whom  I  could  enlighten  a  ray  on  the  folly  and 
madness  of  his  passionate  course  ;  nor  a  greedy  accu 
mulator  of  money,  who  does  not  know  that  a  few  years 
hence,  as  he  lies  on  his  death-bed,  his  fortune  will  not 
be  worth  to  him  one  of  the  straws  he  gasps  away  his 
empty  life  upon  ;  nor  an  idle,  frivolous  girl,  nor  a  hard 
ened  worldly  Avoman,  who  does  not  know,  as  well  as 
Dr.  Paley,  and  Mr.  Bentham,  and  Mr.  Combe,  and  all 
the  Utilitarian  philosophers  that  ever  lived  or  ever  will 
live,  that  no  real  happiness,  no  true  wisdom,  no  en 
lightened  self-interest,  is  promoted  by  gew-gaws  and 
feathers,  by  laces  and  upholstery,  by  folly  and  show. 
It  is  not  ignorance  that  binds  these  victims  to  their 
vices  and  their  follies,  as  to  a  funeral  pile.  It  is  want 
of  moral  strength  to  break  away  from  their  ruin.  It  is 
a  state  of  paralytic  will,  of  rebellious  or  reckless  affec 
tions.  Until  this  passionate,  pleasure-loving,  eager  na 
ture  of  ours,  is  reached  by  objects  that  kindle  nobler  de 
sires,  fix  profounder  affections,  electrify  the  heavenly 
will ;  until  something  stirs  the  conscience  as  no  calcu 
lation  of  interest  can,  something  starts  the  will  to  do 
right  as  no  mere  enlightenment  of  the  understanding 
can — there  is  no  chance  of  an  emancipation  from  the 
ruinous,  heaven-defying  follies  and  vices,  and  the  mean, 
earth-clinging  weaknesses,  that  commonly  describe  our 
race  !  Do  you  hope  to  set  the  reason  and  the  con- 


SELFISHNESS    AND    LOVE.  429 

science  and  the  selfishness  of  man  against  his  passions, 
affections,  and  desires,  and  so  win  the  day  ?  You  might 
as  well  fight  fire  with  straw,  or  the  wind  with  fans  ! 
The  passions  are  withstood  only  by  the  help  of  the  pas 
sions  ;  the  emotions  by  the  emotions  ;  the  affections  by 
the  affections.  The  baser  will  yield  only  to  the  nobler 
in  its  own  kind.  To  restrain  the  bodily  appetites,  the 
moral  appetites  must  be  aroused  ;  to  arrest  the  unlaw 
ful,  the  lawful  passions  must  be  set  to  work  ;  to  purge 
the  baser,  the  purer  affections  must  be  animated.  And 
this  is  the  work  of  religion,  and  nothing  but  religion  can 
do  it.  Her  appeal  is  to  the  heart,  and  the  conscience, 
and  the  will.  She  aims  to  arouse  the  admiration,  the 
enthusiasm,  the  passionate  fears  and  hopes,  the  grateful 
affections,  the  self-condemnation,  the  sympathy,  the 
heroism  of  the  soul.  To  this  end  she  presents  her  all- 
holy,  all-wise,  and  all-loving  God,  and  gives  the  affect- 
ing>  history  of  his  long-suffering  dealings  with  his  rebel 
lious  children  ;  her  gentle,  heroic,  martyred  Saviour, 
dying  of  wounds  from  the  very  hands  he  was  filling  with 
life  and  happiness  ;  her  noble  ideals  of  character,  her 
attractive  and  glorious  future  !  She  appeals  to  the 
conscience,  not  as  to  a  slave  of  interest,  but  a  noble 
witness  for  God,  and  calls  upon  man  to  hate  and  de 
spise  himself  for  his  treachery  to  his  better  nature  and 
his  divine  original.  She  speaks  to  the  will  as  Christ 
spoke  to  the  palsied  arm,  when  his  voice  of  power  put 
nerve  into  its  stringless  muscles.  She  speaks,  not  as  to 
the  base  beam  of  the  grocer's  scale,  that  will  only  yield 
to  the  preponderate  weight  that  inclines  it  to  either 
side ;  but  as  Moses  spoke  to  the  dead  rod,  when  it 


430  THE    RE-ADJUSTMENT    OF    FAITH. 

leaped  out  a  living  serpent,  and  devoured  the  meaner 
vermin  that  crept  around  it.  Man's  will  is  free  !  free 
as  God's  lightning,  as  it  sleeps  in  the  silent,  motionless 
cloud,  which  at  any  moment  may  dart  from  its  lair  to 
shake  the  mountains  with  its  voice,  illuminate  the  con 
cave  with  its  glaring  eye,  and  cleave  the  centuried  ce 
dar  with  its  falchion  of  flame  !  And  religion  alone 
knows  and  feels  this,  and  so  alone  can  catch  man  half 
way  down  the  precipice  of  ruin,  and  summon  forth  the 
angel's  wings,  now  folded  to  his  faithless  body,  that  will 
arrest  his  fall,  and  send  him  with  a  swoop  of  victory  up 
the  very  face  of  destruction  itself. 

Do  you  doubt  it  ?  Alas  !  were  it  not  true,  what 
could  have  made  the  world  tenantable  at  all,  or  saved 
the  race  from  the  utter  ruin  of  its  selfish  indolence  or 
mischievous  activity  ?  Oh  !  if  enlightened  self-inter 
est,  if  intelligence  and  reason,  had  been  the  only  or  the 
main  dependence  of  the  world  !  Alas  !  If  noble  passio,ns, 
grand  emotions,  spiritual  awakenings,  and  sudden  vis 
ions  of  heavenly  truth  and  beauty,  had  not  come  to  its 
rescue  ! 

Thank  God,  there  is  not  a  simple,  heart-Christian 
in  the  Methodist  or  the  Baptist,  or  the  Christian  ranks, 
who  tells  the  love  of  God  and  the  compassion  of  Christ, 
the  bliss  of  heaven  and  the  base  ingratitude  of  sin — 
in  sentences  of  tangled  grammar,  and  words,  half  of 
which  cannot  be  found  in  the  dictionary — who,  in  his 
passionate,  loving  soul,  with  eyes  streaming  with  pity 
and  tones  tnat  have  been  caught  from  the  cross — pleads 
with  and  condemns  the  sinner,  and  commands  miracles 
of  tenderness  from  a  heart  that  till  now  had  been  hard 


SELFISHNESS    AND    LOVE.  431 

as  stone,  and  miracles  of  resolution  from  a  will  that  till 
now  has  been  as  unstable  as  water — no,  not  one  such 
Gospel- babe  that  is  not  an  archangel  in  spiritual  power 
and  in  saving  influence,  when  compared  with  the  cal 
culating  machines  called  moral  philosophers,  though 
the  understandings  of  Bacon,  and  Newton,  and  Aris 
totle,  were  all  in  their  pay — who  would  make  men  vir 
tuous,  law-abiding,  useful,  and  happy,  by  showing  them 
how  very  good  it  is  to  be  good,  and  how  very  amiable  to  be 
amiable,  and  how  very  happy  to  be  happy  !  Men  must 
have  tremendous  arid  divine  motives  to  touch  their  dead 
hearts  and  vitalize  their  torpid  wills,  before  they  will  ex 
perience  the  moral  miracle  of  rising  from  the  graves  of 
selfishness  in  which  they  mostly  lie  buried.  And  re 
ligion  is  the  only  power  that  ever  did  or  ever  will  ac 
complish  this  work.  Love  does  it  for  a  day,  a  month, 
for  most — aye,  forever  for  some — but  then  it  becomes 
religion.  But  Christ  in  his  Gospel  has  done  it,  and  is 
doing  it,  for  millions,  because  he  is  Love  embodied  in  a 
holy  life,  and  bleeding  in  a  sacred  death  ;  because  he  is 
God's  love  come  down  to  plead  with,  and  re-create  and 
save,  God's  child — who  knows  not  he  has  a  heart  of 
heavenly  fire,  a  will  of  angelic  power,  till  Christ's  voice 
scatters  the  sins  and  follies  that  bury  them  from  sight, 
and  reveals  them,  by  their  own  light  and  might,  to  the 
astonished  consciousness  of  their  now  redeemed  and 
emancipated  subject  and  possessor. 

My  brethren,  it  is  too  obvious  for  argument,  that 
any  scheme  that  leaves  out  of  the  plan  of  human  life 
or  social  progress  such  an  agency  as  this,  leaves  the  sun 
out  of  the  heavens,  the  oxygen  out  of  the  air,  the  mean- 


432  THE    RE-ADJUSTMENT    OF    FAITH. 

ing  out  of  the  world.  A  desert  island,  with  every  thing 
found  upon  it  ready  for  man's  use  and  enjoyment,  ex 
cept  a  spark  of  fire — but  that  forever  to  be  excepted — 
would  not  be  a  more  dreary  and  desolate  abode  !'  Bet 
ter  the  icy  caves  of  the  Northern  pole,  with  fire  and 
fuel  at  hand,  than  the  spontaneous  tropic  without  them. 
Better  ignorance,  crudity,  and  want,  of  every  other  de 
scription,  with  the  sole  illumination  of  true  and  vital 
religion,  than  the  best  and  costliest  and  eldest  civiliza 
tion  of  the  globe,  with  God's  throne  vacant,  the  cross 
without  its  bleeding  weight,  and  the  human  conscience 
and  will  deprived  of  the  inspiration  and  salvation  of  the 
religion  that  alone  can  meet  the  weakness,  and  want, 
and  sinfulness  of  man  ! 

Nay,  it  is  in  the  memory,  and  on  the  influence  of 
the  pious  generations  that  once  believed,  and  loved,  and 
prayed,  and  wrestled,  and  conquered — it  is  as  the  heirs 
of  a  devout  ancestry,  that  a  few  are  able  to  live  now 
upon  the  capital  of  the  religious  past,  without  adding 
to  the  store  of  faith  in  their  blood  and  habits  and 
tastes  !  From  the  spiritual  heights  to  which  they  have 
been  lifted  by  their  believing  predecessors,  they  look 
down  upon  the  multitude,  and  say,  "  Why  keep  these 
dogmas  and  customs  and  rites  and  prayers  a-going  any 
longer  ?  Don't  you  see  we  are  up  here — good,  pure, 
intelligent,  orderly  people  ?  We  have  no  further  oc 
casion  for  these  old  scaling-ladders  of  faith  and  prayer 
and  sacred  customs.  Pray,  break  them  up  !  Religion 
was  a  good  thing  once,  but  prayers  and  creeds  and  be 
liefs  and  piety  had  their  long  day.  Now  it  is  enough 
to  do  good  and  to  be  good.  We  are  good,  and  we  do 


SELFISHNESS   AND    LOVE.  433 

good,  you  must  acknowledge.  Imitate  us,  ye  simple 
people,  and  you  shall  all  be  content  yourselves,  and 
make  all  others  so." 

Ah,  ye  amiable,  well-meaning  souls,  we  acknowl 
edge  your  essential  purity  and  excellence  !  Nay,  we 
should  gladly  fill  the  world  with  copies  of  your  moral 
worth.  But  we  cannot  forget  to  consider  how  you  got 
where  you  are,  nor  to  speculate  where  you  would  have 
been,  if  your  parents  and  grandparents  had  thought  and 
felt  as  you  do  !  We  cannot  but  reflect,  that  religion 
had  a  far  larger  hand  in  your  making  than  it  has  in 
your  talking,  and  is  even  now  more  operative  in  your 
hearts  and  wills  than  it  is  in  your  theories.  In  short, 
we  perceive,  that  having  used  the  ladders  of  faith  and 
religious  obedience  to  attain  your  present  moral  position, 
you  would  persuade  the  world,  which  is  not  at  all  on 
your  moral  level,  to  abandon  all  ladders,  on  the  strength 
of  the  fact  that  you  do  not  require  them  ;  a  fact  with 
out  pertinency  to  them.  You  are  simply  asking  them 
to  fly.,  where  you  yourselves  never  flew,  but  only  crept. 
First,  fly  yourselves  to  the  elevation  next  above  you — 
which,  if  you  ever  reach  it,  it  can  only  be  by  the  old 
means — and  then  you  may  persuade  us  to  trust  to 
wings  which  we  do  not  possess,  and  to  fling  away  what 
Grod  has  given  us — the  humbler  ways  and  means  of  an 
obedient  religious  discipline. 

Because  religion  is  true,  and  has  divine  commands 
for  you  and  over  you — because  it  is  life  and  power,  heart 
and  will,  and  can  alone  supply  you  with  motives  and 
impulse  for  a  noble  and  a  true  life — because,  too,  it  is 
method,  implement,  rule,  lending  a  daily  guidance, 

19 


434  THE    RE-ADJUSTMENT    OF    FAITH. 

support  and  discipline — by  each  and  all  these  consider 
ations,  I  beg  you  to  discard  the  error  of  the  day  which 
would  seduce  you  from  a  simple  faith,  and  leave  you, 
under  the  pretence  of  an  advanced,  a  more  rational,  and 
more  useful  style  of  belief,  stripped  of  the  glory,  the 
consolation,  and  the  inspiration  of  the  religion  of  Christ. 

OCTOBER  2,  1859. 


THE    END. 


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